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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” 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 was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”