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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”