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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”