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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals 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 first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”