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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy 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 permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”