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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely 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 behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”