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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons 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 back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”