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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”