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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”