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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”