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Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”