Partnership ceremonies in churches in Norway

10th anniversary for the first partnership ceremony in Oslo – New Trend: Civil Partnership ceremonies increasingly held in Churches… ©LIOW-LB/Enkidu

Este articulo en español: 10° Aniversario de la Primer Ceremonia de Compromiso en Oslo - Nuevo Sesgo, las ceremonias de Compromiso Civil cada vez más se realizan en las iglesias ©LIOW-LB/Enkidu

Karen-Christine Friele: People are kinder and more accepting today

On August 6th 1993, former MP from the conservative party Wenche Lowsow and gay activist Karen-Christine Friele were the first couple that entered a legally recognized same sex partnership in Norway, together with 4 other couples in a big ceremony in the monumental City Hall of Oslo. In an interview with NRK, Norway’s national public broadcaster, Friele said on August 6^th, that it was emotionally a very strong experience for her.

An enormous crowd had gathered together in front of the City Hall. After all, it was an historic event, said Friele who believes that the events 10 years ago have contributed to remove prejudice from the society and break up silencing processes and spread knowledge. She says that therefore, people today have become more accepting and are in general kinder to each other than a decade ago.

(Enkidu’s feature article about Karen-Christine Friele from last year: [09.02.2002]: Karen Kristine Friele: La Gran Dama del Movimiento Gay Noruego, por LIOW-LB)

Karen Christine Frielse and Wenche Lowzow at their partnership ceremony in Oslo August 6, 1993, dressed in traditional regional costumes [bunad].
Photos: Scanpix/Trygve Indrelid

Partnership ceremonies in Churches

Several congregations of the National Church of Norway in and around Oslo are allowing that the churches are used for partnership ceremonies for same sex couples. The churches do not provide their own ceremony of consecration of the partnership, but instead allow the couple to bring with them a judge, who in the middle of the mass, performs the civil partnership ceremony in front of the altar, where church marriages also are performed. Thereafter the couple will receive a blessing from the priest. Then, the congregation prays for the couple that leaves the church in a procession in which both the priest and the judge participate.

The ceremony and the rituals are thus performed to an equal extent by a secular judge and a priest, and they combine secular and regular elements. Since the actual wow is made before a judge, the ceremony is also legally binding. The ceremony is still not sanctioned or acknowledged officially by the church, and is something that has developed spontaneously in the congregations as a result of impatience with the church’ official attitude, which still is undetermined despite decades of discussions.

On August 2, Tore Hole Follestad, chairman in the National Organisation for Lesbian and Gay Liberation (LLH - Landsforeningen for Lesbisk og Homofil Frigjøring) celebrated his partnership ceremony with Morten Røed Rosseland in Tøyen Church in Oslo. When interviewed about his ceremony by the newspaper Vårt Land, he said that they first went to the Court of Justice, where they got a judge, and then brought him with them to the church, where actually both the priest and the judge lead a common ceremony. Tøyen Church, however, is not a parochial church, but subjugated to the bishopric directly and it is placed under the immediate supervision of Oslo’s bishop, Gunnar Stålsett. The bishop’s reaction to the partnership ceremony is not known. Vårt Land writes, however, that the bishop was not informed in advance. The bishop, however, does not want to comment this further since he is on holidays until the middle of August.

Follestad says that several churches are prepared to allow similar ceremonies to take place. It is much more difficult to find a judge to perform the partnership ceremony than a priest, since most of them do not work during the weekends, when marriages are held in the churches. Eva Nygaard Ottesen, public registrar and notary public in Oslo says to Vårt Land, that there are no legal or bureaucratic obstacles to hold a partnership ceremony in a church. Basically as long as the judge is present, the ceremony can take place anywhere, and the judge has no duty to inform anyone where it happened either. LLH in Oslo is regularly contacted by people desiring partnership ceremonies in a church, and has a counselling service for them.

Enkidu Honeymoonpackages is one option for these couples to celebrate their comittment, by the way...

Sources:

06.08.2003

August 2003

* [If you desire further information about the original sources in Danish, please, send a request to ENKIDU]. If you desire further information about the original sources in Norwegian, please, send a request to ENKIDU].

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