🔗 Share this article

Amid deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion it had inflicted.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I apologise today.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit recognized. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Like many religions around the world, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity from serving as pastors or to marry in church. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops described gay people as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

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

In 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples could get married in religious ceremonies from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “not in time for those who passed away from AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as punishment from God”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have tried to offer apologies for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, England's church apologised for what it referred to as its “shameful” treatment, even as it continues to refuse to permit gay marriages in church.

In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for its “failures in pastoral support and care” to LGBTQ+ people and their relatives, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

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

“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, said. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”