🔗 Share this article

Against red stage curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has brought LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, the church leader, declared on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for the killings.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a first for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization of Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a crucial act of amends” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a painful era within the church's past”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement 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 as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We did not manage to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”