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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”