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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director 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 as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”