The Norwegian Church Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Amid crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have tried to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”