The Norwegian Church Issues Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

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

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and same-sex couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”