🔗 Share this article

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church began ordaining gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”