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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

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

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”