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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. 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 killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”