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Set against 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.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident 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, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called 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, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”