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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”