Norway's Church Makes Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’
Set against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.
“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, declared this Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why today I say sorry.”
“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.
The statement of regret occurred at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that resulted in two deaths and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in incarceration for the killings.
Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships during 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples have been able to have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.
The apology on Thursday was met with varied responses. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.
For Stephen Adom, the leader of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.
Worldwide, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England apologised for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in church.
Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and their families, but remained staunch in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.
In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.
“We did not manage to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have wounded people rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”