Church of Norway apologises to LGBTQ+ community for past discrimination
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Presiding Bishop Olav Fykse Tveit's apology follows a 2022 acknowledgement by the Church's bishops that the institution had inflicted pain on LGBTQ+ people.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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OSLO – The Church of Norway apologised on Oct 16 to the country’s LGBTQ+ community for decades of discrimination, acknowledging the institution had caused harm to gay people and thanking those who campaigned for change.
Presiding Bishop Olav Fykse Tveit delivered the apology at the London Pub in Oslo, a gay bar that was the site of a shooting in June 2022
Speaking on behalf of Norway’s Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Tveit said the world is a better place when people are free to love who they want.
“The Church in Norway has imposed shame, great harm and pain... this should not have happened, and that is why I apologise today,” Bishop Tveit said.
The apology follows a 2022 acknowledgment by the Church’s bishops that the institution had inflicted pain on LGBTQ+ people. In the 1950s, the Norwegian Bishops’ Conference described gay people as a “social danger of global dimensions”.
A church service was scheduled to follow the apology at the Oslo Cathedral on the evening of Oct 16.
Today, same-sex couples can marry in ceremonies held by the Church of Norway, an Evangelical Lutheran church and the largest community of faith in the Nordic country.
The Church of England, central to 85 million Anglicans worldwide, apologised in January 2023 for “shameful” treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, though it maintained its refusal to allow same-sex marriages in churches. This week its bishops stopped plans to trial separate blessings for same-sex couples, although these can take place within routine church services. REUTERS
