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Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

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

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”