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Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”