Norway's Church Issues Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”