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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”