О шестой заповеди
The Sixth Commandment Defined
The sixth commandment is defined as "You shall not murder," encompassing both bodily and spiritual harm.
Question 63. What is the sixth commandment?✦ Answer. "You shall not murder" (Ex.12 20:13).
The Gravity of Spiritual Murder
The commandment prohibits not only physical murder but also spiritual murder, which is more terrible as it deprives the soul of eternal life through scandal and bad example.
Question 64. What does this commandment mean? Answer. This commandment teaches that no one who fears God should commit murder — not only of the body, but of the soul.✦ Those who kill the body take away a temporal life; but those who kill the soul deprive it of eternal life. This second kind of murderer is the more terrible of the two. Such are schismatics, false teachers, and bad Christians who by their own lives set an example of dissolute living — that3 is, they become a stumbling block to others; and of such people Scripture says: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matt.45 18:6).
Forms of Murder and Its Roots
Murder can be committed through actions, advice, incitement, or consent, and is rooted in passions like pride, envy, and hatred.
Murder isn't committed only by the act itself, but also by giving advice, by assisting, by inciting, and by consenting. Equally contrary to this commandment are all the passions that give rise to murder, such as pride, envy, hatred, greed, and the like.6
Read the original Russian
Вопрос 63. Какая шестая заповедь?
Ответ. "Не убий" (Исх. 20, 13).
Вопрос 64. Какой смысл сей заповеди?
Ответ. Сия заповедь учит, чтобы ни один человек, боящийся Бога, не совершал убийства, не только телесного, но и душевного. Те, кои убивают тело, отнимают временную жизнь; но убивающие душу, лишают ее жизни вечной. Сии последние убийцы более ужасны. Таковы суть – раскольники, лжеучители и худые Христиане, которые подают собою пример распутной жизни, т. е. служат соблазном; а о сих Писание говорит: "иже аще соблазнит единаго малых сих верующих в Мя, уне есть ему, да обесится жернов оселский на выи его, и потонет в пучине морстей» (Мф. 18, 6).
Убийство совершается не только самым делом, но и советом, помощию, побуждением, согласием. Равно также противны сей заповеди и все те страсти, от которых происходит убийство, как-то: гордость, зависть, ненависть, лихоимство и подобные.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩Russian "Не убий" is the Slavonic-style imperative of the sixth commandment. Rendered "You shall not murder" rather than "You shall not kill": the commandment as expounded in this chapter concerns unlawful taking of human life, not every act of killing.
- 2 ↩Direct quotation of Exodus 20:13; the citation is split across s2/s3 by the source sentence segmentation and left unjoined per the one-ref-per-sentence rule.
- 3 ↩The sentence is cut off mid-abbreviation: the source segmentation splits «т.е.» ('that is') across this sentence and the next, so the clause is completed only in s6–s7.
- 4 ↩The source quotes Matthew 18:6 in Church Slavonic. Rendered here as a plain modern English quotation; final wording should be conformed to the project's Scripture source at the resolution stage.
- 5 ↩«соблазн» is the Slavonic/Greek skandalon — an occasion of another's fall, not mere offense; 'stumbling block' preserves that sense.
- 6 ↩"Greed" renders лихоимство, an older term for grasping after gain — covering avarice, extortion, and usurious profit-taking. "Greed" keeps the plain modern sense; "covetousness" would be the closer traditional equivalent.
Orthodox Confession (Pravoslavnoe Ispovedanie) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit