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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier 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 “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”