Head of Norwegian Church apologizes to LGBT community in Oslo gay club

Olaf Fykse Tveit at the bar that was attacked in 2022 during the LGBT parade celebration in Oslo. Photo: EPA

On October 16, 2025, the presiding bishop of the Church of Norway, Olav Fykse Tveit, publicly apologized to representatives of the LGBT community for years of discrimination. The statement was made at the London Pub in Oslo, where a shooting occurred during the celebration of the LGBT parade in 2022. This was reported by The Guardian.

The bishop stated that the Church of Norway had caused people "shame, great harm, and pain," and emphasized that such things "should never have happened". After his speech, Tveit led a service at the Oslo Cathedral, noting that discrimination and unequal treatment by the Church had led many to "lose their faith". Olav Fykse Tveit apologized for the previous ban on the ordination of gays and for the years of suffering inflicted on the LGBT community.

The Church of Norway is an evangelical Lutheran national church and the largest religious community in the country. For a long time, it denied LGBT representatives the right to be pastors and to enter into church marriages. However, since 2007, it began ordaining homosexual priests, and since 2017, it has allowed the marriage of same-sex couples. In 2023, Tveit participated in the Oslo pride parade for the first time for his Church.

The apology received mixed reactions. Representatives of the LGBT community called the step "important and overdue," but some believers considered it a violation of traditional Christian principles.

It should be noted that earlier Olav Fykse Tveit, along with other Scandinavian bishops, including the head of the Lutheran Church of Iceland Gudrun Karls Helgudottir and the Archbishop of Finland Tapio Luoma, visited Kyiv, where they met with Epifaniy Dumenko and prayed at the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery.

Most of these Lutheran bishops openly support the LGBT movement, participate in gay parades, and bless same-sex unions. In particular, Olav Fykse Tveit himself previously stated that "the Church must apologize because its attitude has complicated the lives of people with LGBT identities."

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the Church of England had halted the plan to bless same-sex couples.

Read also