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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”