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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”