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Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”