🔗 Share this article

Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment caused by the church.

“The church in Norway has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why today I say sorry.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that resulted in two deaths and left nine seriously injured at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.

In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church from 2017 onward. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “represented the closure of a painful era in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “meaningful and vital” but was delivered “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 sought to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to permit gay marriages in church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.

“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the beauty of all creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”