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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, 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 have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”