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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”