🔗 Share this article

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm caused by the church.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to follow his apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”