🔗 Share this article

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

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

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to at least 30 years behind bars for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”