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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”