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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals 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 in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”