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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 church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, 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 history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”