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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

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

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During 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 allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”