🔗 Share this article

Amid crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I offer my apology now.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A religious service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to have church weddings. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could have church weddings starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland in the past year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage could only be a bond between male and female.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”