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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”