🔗 Share this article

Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”