🔗 Share this article

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to come after the apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies 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 Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”