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Set against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”