The Norwegian Church Delivers Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Amid crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I offer my apology now.”

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

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration 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 – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church since 2017. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret was met with differing opinions. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but had come “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. During 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.

Earlier this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”