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Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality 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 church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”