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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as 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”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology 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 wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”