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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two 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 had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals 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 legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”