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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”