🔗 Share this article

Set against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated during a Thursday event. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused a loss of faith for some, the bishop admitted. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret occurred at a venue called London Pub, a bar that was one of two attacked during the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades in prison for the murders.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, ranking as the second globally to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

Back in 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining homosexual ministers, and same-sex couples could have church weddings from 2017 onward. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received varied responses. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a point in time that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter within the church's past”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, the Church of England said sorry for what it referred to as “disgraceful” conduct, even as it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a partnership of one man and one woman.

Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, describing it as a confirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We caused pain to people in place of fostering completeness. We are sorry.”