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Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons 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 during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”