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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”