🔗 Share this article

Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to follow his apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the statement was “meaningful and vital” but had come “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, England's church apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”