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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited 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 moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”