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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”