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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing 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 celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”