🔗 Share this article

Amid deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.

The apology was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars targeted in the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to at least 30 years behind bars for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from serving as pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

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

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a painful era within the church's past”.

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

Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, but held fast in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

Several months ago, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”