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Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”