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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”