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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”