Norway's Church Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Set against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”