🔗 Share this article

Set against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples could have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to reconcile for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it still declines to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”