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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”