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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

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

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”