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Set against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”