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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

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

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”