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Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced 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” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”