🔗 Share this article

Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons 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 during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

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

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”