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Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty · Catechism · 853

Faith Q&A › Catechism › 22. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony

Should the wife obey her husband if he asks her to break one of God’s commandments?

The answer

St. John Chrysostom says, “If the father be a gentile or a heretic, we ought no longer to obey (in what is against the Lord’s command), because the command is not then, in the Lord.”1741

St Augustine says, “a Christian husband may leave his wife without any blame, although joined in lawful union, if she refuses to live with him because of the fact that he is a Christian”1742

Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty

Notes

1741 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 21 (NPNF I/13:153).

1742 St. Augustine of Hippo, The Eight Questions of Dulcitius 1 (FOTC 16:436).

Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, Catechism of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Volume 1, Books 1–3. First English Edition, 2023. Published by St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, Sporting, Alexandria, and Queen St. Mary & Prince Tadros Coptic Orthodox Church, South Brunswick, NJ. Copyright © 2023. Translation and Editing: Youth of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Arabian Gulf, and Egypt.