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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian 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 disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”