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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”