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Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”