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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

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

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades 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 the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada 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 failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”