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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious 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 resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”