A little over 9 months after Smertekirken submitted our request to be recognized by the state as a religious community, our answer came on Monday 30 October. The answer was not what we had been hoping for.
We are very sorry to have to bring you this sad news. Right now, we will not talk too much about the way forward—but wanted to share the news with you as soon as we could. The first thing that needs to happen is a board meeting to discuss where we go from here. We have three weeks to submit our complaint.
If you want to read the answer (in Norwegian) from Statsforvalteren i Agder, you can download the document here:
Our main points (in Norwegian) from the application submitted in January:
We know that this is disappointing news for a lot of us. As always, if you want to reach out, we are here via Facebook, Instagram, or contact@churchofpain.org.