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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”