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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths 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 no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”