🔗 Share this article

Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. 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.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in the view that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”