Norway's Church Delivers Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The head of a network 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 difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”