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Against a backdrop of red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway apologised for the discrimination and harm it had inflicted.
“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, said on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.
The apology took place at the London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the killings.
Like many religions around the world, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.
But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and in 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.
In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. In 2023, Tveit participated in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was described as a first for the church.
Thursday’s apology was met with a mixed reaction. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.
For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “too late for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.
Globally, a handful of religious institutions have sought to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.
Similarly, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that marriage could only be a union between a man and a woman.
Earlier this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.
“We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”
With contributions from Agence France-Presse and Reuters
