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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”