🔗 Share this article

Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to at least 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”