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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 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 LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”