The Norwegian Church Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have sought to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but stayed firm in the view that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”