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Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”