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

Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, several faith-based organizations have sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to permit gay marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”