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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people 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 a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”