Norway's Church Makes Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’
Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.
“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to take place after his statement.
The apology occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that took two lives and left nine seriously injured throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.
Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.
In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.
Thursday’s apology received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “represented the closure 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 represented “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as punishment from God”.
Globally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.
Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.
Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We apologize.”