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Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”