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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”