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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

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

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – 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 from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing 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 celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”