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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”