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

Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”