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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”