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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. 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 in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”