The Norwegian Church Issues Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’

Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was arranged to follow his apology.

The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to at least 30 years in incarceration for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.

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

During 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology elicited varied responses. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. During 2023, England's church said sorry for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.

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

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”