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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, 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, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”