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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. 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 back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. 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 painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”