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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in 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” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”