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Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion 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 statement was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment 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 top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”