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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment 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,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”