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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England 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, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”