🔗 Share this article

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

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to 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 occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. In the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted 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, herself 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 leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”