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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”