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

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, 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”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”