Norway's Church Issues Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’

Against crimson theater drapes at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has brought LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A church service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a painful era in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but arrived “too late for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, though it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.

Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”