Norway's Church 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, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”