Norway's Church Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

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

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday was met with a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year apologised for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”