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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be 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 did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”