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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 discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”