Norway's Church Issues Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”