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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back 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 allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”