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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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 legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past 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 bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”