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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”