Norway's Church Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret 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 union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”