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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction 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 issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”