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

Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 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 LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment 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,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”