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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

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