A service held in St. John’s Church was interrupted when former pastor Per KÃ¸rner rushed to the alter wearing a yellow reflex vest marked with an anti-gay message.

KÃ¸rner, who knelt down in prayer, revealed in protest a vest marked with ‘God is not mocked’ on it’s front, and: ‘He created them as man and woman’ at the back.

41 year old Torill JÃ¸rgensen FrÃ¸ise who attended the around 60 people strong service told Gay Star News she was shocked: ‘we had just began to sing the opening psalm, “Be thou my vision”, when he walked up the floor with his anti-gay message.’

FrÃ¸ise stated to GSN that KÃ¸rner was tactfully led to back of the church and asked to sit down but he tried to ‘get right back up so he needed to be guarded.

‘We kept on singing and when we finished the psalm, our pastor Anna Hovda stated the church is big enough to accommodate everyone, but asked that everyone needs to be respected rather than denied,’ she said.

KÃ¸rner who resigned in protest a few years ago after the Church of Norway welcomed LGBT people, ‘explained’ to reporters: ‘I wanted to show them how wrong it is to promote sin in God’s house.’

FrÃ¸ise recounted to GSN: ‘I’m from a conservative family, and I know some of them have the same opinions as his, that living as an LGBT person is a sin, so this was kind of hard.

‘But we didn’t let this ruin a great service marking Pride week.

‘I hope that this can be a reminder that the struggle is not over, not even in Norway.

‘This service was symbolic to our congregation, which we call the Open Church, as it is the first time we manage to hold it in Bergen’s main Church.

‘It was not easy to organize as it was met with some opposition, so this was a kind of victory for us.

‘So we’re not letting this affect our work and pressing with preparations to march in Bergen Pride, where we are doing charity work to help LGBT people in Russia.

‘It serves as a reminder that in Russia the Church throws out gays – not homophobic former priests, like in Norway’.