Church of Norway Delivers Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, 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 legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”