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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

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