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Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

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

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. 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 killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”