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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”