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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

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