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Amid red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part 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 of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”