Church of Norway Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Amid red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more 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 approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

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

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”