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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada 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” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”