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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 inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

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

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack 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 given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”