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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”