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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination 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, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”