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

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

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

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”