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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

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

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”