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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised 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 bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”