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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, 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 church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”