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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”