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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment 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 all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”