🔗 Share this article

Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts since the church viewed the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent 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+ groups, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”