Church of Norway Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Amid red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”