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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives 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 at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”