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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church starting in 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 a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

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

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”