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Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

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

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”