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Set against 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.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”