🔗 Share this article

Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology occurred at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Similarly, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”