Norway's Church Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’

Against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.

Thursday’s apology received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion 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 because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.

Globally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”