🔗 Share this article

Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.

“The national church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to no less than 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have sought to reconcile for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “disgraceful” conduct, though it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in religious settings.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”