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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”