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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

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

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”