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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”