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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced 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 most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”