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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”