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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”