🔗 Share this article

Set against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years behind bars for carrying out the attacks.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

Back in 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.

The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.

For Stephen Adom, the head of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology represented “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, England's church expressed regret for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”