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

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”