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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”