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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”