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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”