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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

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

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”