CHAPTER 1. - Blasphemers and Church Troublemakers. In It Are 9 Articles.

1. If believers in non-Orthodox faiths, of whatever Creed, or a Russian, casts abuse on the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, or on the Lady Most Pure Who gave birth to Him, our Mother of God the Chaste Maiden Mary, or on the Holy Cross, or on His Holy Saints: rigorously investigate this by all methods of inquiry. If that is established conclusively: having convicted the blasphemer, execute him by burning him [in a cage].

2. If a disorderly person, coming into God's church during the holy liturgy, by any action whatsoever does not permit the completion of the divine liturgy: having arrested him and investigated him rigorously [and having established] that he committed such a deed, punish him with death, without any mercy.

3. If someone during the holy liturgy [or during] other church services, coming into God's church, proceeds to address indecent remarks to the patriarch, or a metropolitan, or archbishop and bishop, or archimandrite, or father superior and other member of the clerical order, and thereby in the church creates a disturbance for the divine liturgy, and this becomes known to the sovereign, and that is established conclusively: inflict on that disorderly person a beating [with the knout] in the market places for his offense.

4. If someone, coming into God's church, proceeds to assault anyone at all, and kills the person: after investigation, punish that killer himself with death.

5. If [the assailant] wounds someone, but does not kill him: inflict on him a beating [with the knout] in the market places without mercy, cast him in prison for a month, and the injured party shall collect from him a double dishonor compensation for the injury.

6. If such a disorderly person assaults anyone at all in God's church but does not wound [him]: for such an offense beat him with bastinadoes, and the person whom he struck shall collect his dishonor compensation from him.

7. If someone dishonors someone by word, but does not assault [him]: cast him in prison for a month for the offense. The person who was dishonored by him shall exact from him the dishonor compensation so that those looking on will not commit such offenses in God's church.

8. In church, during the church services, no one shall petition the Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Aleksei Mikhailovich, or the great lord the most holy Iosif, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, or the metropolitans, and archbishops, and bishops about any personal affairs, so that, as a consequence, there will be no disruption of the church services in God's church because God's church is designed for prayer. It is fitting for Orthodox Christians to stand in God's church and pray with fear, and not to contemplate earthly matters.

9. If someone, forgetting the fear of God and disdaining the Tsar's order, proceeds to petition the sovereign, or patriarch, or any other high church officials about his personal affairs in God's church during the church services: cast that petitioner in prison for as long as the sovereign decrees.