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Amid 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.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths 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 given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”