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

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting 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 given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the disease as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”