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Amid deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

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

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”