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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons 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 during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be 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, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”