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Amid crimson theater drapes 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 national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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 first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church 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” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”