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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

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

The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute 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, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”