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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”