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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”