🔗 Share this article

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, 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 worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”