Set against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.
“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and that is why I apologise today.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.
This formal apology took place at the London Pub, a bar that was one of two targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.
Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – for years sidelined the LGBTQ+ community, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. During the 1950s, church leaders characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, ranking as the second globally to allow same-sex registered partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the initial Nordic nation to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.
During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing gay pastors, and same-sex couples could marry in church from 2017 onward. In 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was described as an unprecedented step for the church.
The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The head of a network representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “an important reparation” and a point in time that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.
For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the disease to be God’s punishment”.
Internationally, several faith-based organizations have attempted to reconcile for historical treatment regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to authorize same-sex weddings in church.
In a similar vein, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but remained staunch in its conviction 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 renewed commitment of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.
“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”
