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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”