🔗 Share this article

Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back 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 during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to 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 among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”