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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”