The Norwegian Church Delivers Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”