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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”