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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

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

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”