🔗 Share this article

Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”