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

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing 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 rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”