The Norwegian Church Issues Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’
Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.
“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.
The apology occurred at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the murders.
Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or from marrying in religious ceremonies. In the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.
But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
During 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to 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 received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period within the church's past”.
According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but was delivered “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.
Internationally, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.
In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that matrimony must only constitute a bond between male and female.
Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it 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 all of your beautiful creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”