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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “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”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”