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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”