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Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”