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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”