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Set against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”