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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”