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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For 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 deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”