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Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”