Church of Norway Delivers Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a renewed commitment 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,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”