The Norwegian Church Delivers Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”