🔗 Share this article

Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received differing opinions. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have tried to make amends for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”