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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”