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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”