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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”