🔗 Share this article

Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

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

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”