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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church 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 every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”