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

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”