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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as 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 the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”