Norway's Church Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’
Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.
“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and which is the reason I apologise today.”
“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to take place after his statement.
The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.
Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.
Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.
According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.
Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.
Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.
Earlier this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”