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Against deep red curtains 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.

“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, 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 from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, 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 all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”