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Amid red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

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

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”