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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 harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”