The Norwegian Church Delivers Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’
Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.
“Norway's church has brought the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to come after the apology.
The apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.
In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, church leaders described gay people as a “social danger of global proportions”.
However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.
In 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in church since 2017. Last year, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.
The Thursday statement of regret was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and an occasion that “finally marked the end of a painful era in the history of the church”.
According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.
Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Church of England expressed regret for what it described as “shameful” actions, even as it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings in church.
In a similar vein, the Methodist Church in Ireland in the past year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.
In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, labeling it a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.
“We have not succeeded to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”