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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”