The Norwegian Church Delivers Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. 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.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The director of a group of 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 “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent 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+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”