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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”