Church of Norway Issues Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Amid red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday received differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to make amends for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”