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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

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

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade 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, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”