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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 perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”