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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”