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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”