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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology 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 have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”