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Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world 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.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader 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 deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”