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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

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

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”