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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

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

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event 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 representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”