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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

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

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world 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 Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, 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 delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”