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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”