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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops 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 during 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”