Church of Norway Issues Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’
Against deep red curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.
“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why today I say sorry.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.
The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades behind bars for carrying out the attacks.
Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, preventing them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.
However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
Back in 2007, the Church of Norway started appointing gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to marry in church starting in 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.
The apology on Thursday elicited varied responses. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a difficult period in the history of the church”.
For Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those who lost their lives to AIDS … carrying heavy hearts as the church regarded the disease to be God’s punishment”.
Internationally, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior concerning the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Church of England expressed regret for what it characterized as “disgraceful” conduct, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.
Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.
In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We have not succeeded to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We are sorry.”