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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”