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Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”