What to do when those closest to you are destroying your soul

Toxic relatives. Photo: UOJ

Have you ever felt that your own family is slowly burning away everything alive inside you? We open the Bible, read the stern words in Exodus about honoring our father and mother, and immediately find ourselves feeling guilty. It can seem as though Christianity requires us to endure every humiliation and every form of emotional blackmail without protest. Isn’t that what the Fifth Commandment says? And doesn’t the Apostle Paul write plainly in his Epistle to the Colossians: “Children, obey your parents in all things” (Col. 3:20)?

But when we turn to the Apostle’s Epistle to the Ephesians, we come across one tiny, almost imperceptible addition: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph. 6:1). Those two little words – “in the Lord” – rule out the principle of blind submission to the will of one’s relatives.

St. John Chrysostom, commenting on this passage, offers a remarkably sober explanation. If a parent pushes a child toward ungodliness, pressures them into shameful acts, or quite literally drains the life out of them, such a command runs contrary to the will of the Creator. It must not be obeyed. Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria takes this principle from Ephesians and boldly applies it to the words “in all things” in Colossians. Obedience “in all things,” in his view, does not mean consenting to sin.

The Apostle Peter and the other disciples of Christ expressed this principle before the high priests: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” This apostolic ultimatum becomes the ultimate measure of our relationship with the world. If we are being asked to betray the truth, trample on our conscience, or turn our lives into an exercise in appeasing someone else’s tyranny, we have every right to give the abuser a firm “no.”

When a sanctuary becomes a sword

In the Gospel of Matthew, the Savior speaks words that can send a chill through the reader: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother... And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matt. 10:34–35).

Why does the Creator speak of a sword and division? St. John Chrysostom explains that the sword here is the word of faith. It cuts a person away from familiar family ties when those ties stand in the way of spiritual growth. Christ desired unity among people, but when those closest to us choose sin or stubbornly refuse to listen, division becomes inevitable. Blessed Augustine calls this sword the sword of the Spirit, while Blessed Jerome of Stridon observes that after the preaching of the Gospel, even the strongest household inevitably becomes divided between believers and unbelievers. A false peace is shattered for the sake of true salvation.

And in the Gospel of Luke, Christ speaks even more starkly: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother... he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). We recoil at the frightening word “hate.” Yet the Hebrew idiom behind the expression, as biblical scholars point out, is not a call to hostility at all.

To “hate” in this context simply means to establish an order of priorities. Love for Christ must be so profound and all-encompassing that every other attachment seems secondary by comparison.

For us, the main pastoral conclusion from all this is clear: when the choice is between pleasing God and pleasing our relatives, we have no right to betray God for the sake of someone else’s approval.

The principle of Corban

But here it is important not to fall into the opposite extreme. Sometimes we begin using our status as “deeply religious people” as a convenient shield to avoid caring for elderly or sick parents. We may be tempted to think: “They don’t go to church, they criticize my faith, and they get on my nerves, so I’ll simply cut them out of my life for the sake of my own peace.”

The Gospel immediately exposes this Pharisaic ploy. In the Gospel of Mark, the Savior sternly rebukes the scribes for devising clever rules to justify themselves. A person could say to his father or mother: “It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me” (Mark 7:11). Under this pious pretext, the Pharisees allowed a person to do nothing more for his impoverished parents. Christ calls this making the word of God of no effect through human tradition.

The boundary of obedience to our loved ones does not lie wherever we begin to feel uncomfortable or hurt. It lies where they demand that we commit a sin.

Look at the Savior. When His brothers and Mother stood outside the house calling for Him, He looked around at those seated nearby and said: “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother” (Matt. 12:49–50). He affirmed the unconditional priority of spiritual kinship over blood ties. Yet the same Christ, as He was dying, took care to provide for His Mother’s earthly future. Seeing the disciple whom He loved, He said: “Woman, behold thy son!” (John 19:26). And from that hour, the disciple took Her into his own home. John did not run away from responsibility or use his divine calling as an excuse – he cared for the Mother of God until the end of Her earthly life.

Imprisonment in a tower and the choice of mercy

Church history contains terrifying examples of a family member becoming an executioner. The Holy Great Martyr Barbara was the only daughter of a wealthy and prominent pagan named Dioscorus. Wanting to keep the young woman hidden from strangers and exercise complete control over her life, her father locked her in a high tower. But when the saint came to believe in Christ and was baptized, mere control was no longer enough for him.

When Dioscorus learned of his daughter’s faith, he flew into a violent rage. The saint tried to hide in a cleft in the mountains, but her father found her, beat her, and personally dragged her before the city’s governor for trial. In front of everyone, he disowned his own child. More than that – when the governor sentenced the young woman to death, her father himself demanded the right to carry out the sentence. And so the executioner of the holy maiden was her own father.

This account from the saint’s life shows us the most extreme point to which human blindness can descend. The words of Scripture, “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” were fulfilled here with horrifying precision. To this day, the Great Martyr Barbara gives us a spiritual point of support when we suffer from the cruelty of our own relatives.

Of course, we are far from the spiritual feat of St. Barbara. But when those closest to us try, figuratively speaking, to lock us in a tower, force us to abandon our faith, break us psychologically, or feed on our emotional pain, we have every right to distance ourselves from them.

Loving a destructive parent does not mean becoming a silent accomplice to their wrongdoing. Nor does avoiding contact with someone who is destroying our soul amount to betrayal. Love can be expressed from a distance – quietly and with restraint, through prayer, an occasional phone call, or by sending medicine or groceries through someone else. We are not obliged to let our souls be torn apart simply because we share blood ties with someone. Honoring our parents means desiring their salvation, praying for them, and helping them in times of need – while still guarding our hearts for God, who gives us true freedom.

Read also