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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”