The Norwegian Church Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. 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 legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, England's church said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”