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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 church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, 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. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”