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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a 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, labeling it a reaffirmation 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 the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”