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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, 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”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, 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 general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”