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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

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

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”