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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”