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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings 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” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”