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Against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders 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 by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance 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, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”