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Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”