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

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”