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Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become 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, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”