Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 2 John
English → Russian | Per-Term Translation Risk Table
Source language: English (working layer over Koine Greek)
Destination language: Russian
Curriculum: 2 John
Baseline dependency: translation_memory.json (Romans) and bible_term_registry.json (Romans) — terms already recorded there are marked REUSE below and their baseline rendering is not altered. Terms introduced by 2 John’s specific doctrines are marked NEW and are proposed here as extensions to the Language Package, consistent with baseline conventions, register, and risk-tier definitions.
Risk tier definitions follow doctrine_risk_registry.json exactly: Critical (human theologian review, every occurrence), High (human theologian review), Medium (native speaker review), Low (automated review).
A. Terms Reused Exactly from the Baseline Romans Package
| English Term | Greek | Russian Rendering | Risk Tier (baseline) | 2 John Passage(s) | Notes for 2 John Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| grace | χάρις | благодать | Critical | 1:3 | Apply baseline’s Palamite-energies collision guidance unmodified; paired distinctly with ἔλεος (mercy) — see new entry below; do not merge the two. |
| peace | εἰρήνη | мир | Medium | 1:3 | Homonym risk (мир = “peace”/“world”) is activated within this same letter — see κόσμος entry below, v. 1:7, same word used for “world.” Flag both occurrences together for review. |
| father | πατήρ | Отец | Medium (High per doctrine registry adoption entry) | 1:3, 1:4, 1:9 | Standard; capitalize per baseline convention. |
| son_of_god | υἱὸς θεοῦ | Сын Божий (concept) / Сына Отчего (2 Jn 1:3 surface form) | Critical | 1:3, 1:9 | 2 John 1:3 uses the distinct historic Synodal phrase “Сына Отчего” rather than “Сын Божий”; both affirm identical doctrine (co-equal, eternal Sonship) — do not harmonize the surface wording, but teach the doctrinal identity explicitly. |
| jesus | Ἰησοῦς | Иисус | Critical | 1:3, 1:7 | Never Исус (Old Believer spelling); apply baseline rule unmodified. |
| messiah / christ | Χριστός | Христос | High/Critical | 1:3, 1:7, 1:9 | Standard; note per baseline that “Христос” functions as Jesus’ effective surname in everyday Russian and its title-force may need re-surfacing in teaching text, exactly as flagged in the Romans messianic_promise doctrine. |
| god | θεός | Бог | Critical | 1:3, 1:9 | Standard; apply baseline registerial-flattening caution unmodified. |
| incarnation (doctrine name) | — (theological category; cf. ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί) | воплощение | Critical | 1:7 (doctrinal anchor verse) | 2 John 1:7 is a primary anchor text for this baseline doctrine term; cross-reference explicitly in teaching material. Forbidden substitution (never аватар) applies at full force. |
| election (doctrine root) | ἐκλεκτός / ἐκλογή | избрание (doctrine) / избранная, избранной (adjectival forms in 2 John) | High | 1:1, 1:13 | 2 John applies the adjective form to persons addressed (“elect lady,” “elect sister”), not to the abstract doctrine directly; cross-reference to baseline’s election doctrine entry in teaching commentary. |
| fellowship (noun, positive sense) | κοινωνία | общение | Low | — (not directly quoted, but critical CONTRAST term) | Must NOT be used to render κοινωνεῖ in 2 John 1:11 (negative, complicity sense). See NEW entry “participate/share in evil” below — this is a mandatory forbidden-substitution rule for this curriculum. |
| law (convention for individual commandments) | ἐντολή vs. νόμος | заповедь (for ἐντολή) | Medium | 1:4, 1:5, 1:6 (×2) | 2 John never uses νόμος; every occurrence is ἐντολή, so заповедь (never закон) is required throughout per baseline’s existing law/заповедь distinction. |
B. New Terms Introduced by 2 John (Extending the Baseline Package)
| English Term | Greek / Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Russian Rendering | Risk Tier | Doctrine | Key Passage(s) | Rationale / Collision Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| truth | ἀλήθεια / alētheia | that which is unhidden; reality vs. falsehood | истина | High | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 | Russian’s истина/правда split (metaphysical vs. moral-experiential truth) is a live literary-philosophical distinction; Synodal’s истина is correct but must be taught as relational/christological, not abstract or ecclesial-institutional. |
| love | ἀγάπη / agapē | deliberate, self-giving, covenantal love (distinct from ἔρως, φιλία) | любовь | High | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1, 1:3, 1:5, 1:6 | Russian collapses Greek’s three love-words into one; risk is sentimental/emotional flattening. Must retain 2 John’s own operational definition (v. 6: love = obedience to the commandments), always paired with истина per the letter’s argument. |
| elder | πρεσβύτερος / presbyteros | older man; church office of eldership | Старец | Critical | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ (authorial voice) | 1:1 | Collides with the highly venerated Russian Orthodox office of старец (charismatic spiritual elder, e.g. the Optina elders); established Synodal rendering retained but collision must be named explicitly in teaching material, per the baseline’s method for вера/праведность-class terms. |
| elect lady | ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ / eklektē kyria | chosen/selected lady (term of respectful address + election vocabulary) | избранная госпожа | Medium | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1 | κυρία (lady) is a false-friend risk against baseline’s Господь (Lord) — same root, unrelated sense; ἐκλεκτή connects to baseline’s избрание (election) doctrine and should be cross-referenced. Individual-woman vs. personified-congregation reading should be presented as an open exegetical question. |
| lady (courtesy address) | κυρία / kyria | lady, madam (form of address) | госпожа | High | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1, 1:5 | Explicit false-friend flag against Critical baseline term κύριος → Господь; must never be rendered with any Lordship-implying form. |
| children (of the addressee) | τέκνα / tekna | children (biological or spiritual/congregational) | дети | Low | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:1, 1:4, 1:13 | No false-friend risk; note corporate/spiritual sense should be flagged on first use rather than assumed literal-familial throughout. |
| mercy | ἔλεος / eleos | compassionate kindness | милость | Medium | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:3 | Distinct from χάρις (grace); baseline rejects милость only as a substitute for grace, not as the correct term for the separate concept ἔλεος. Must remain visibly distinct from благодать in the same verse. |
| deceiver | πλάνος / planos | wanderer; one who misleads | обольститель (Synodal) / обманщик (plain gloss) | High | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | Cultural risk: adjacent vocabulary (секта/сектантство) is sometimes applied in Russian public discourse to Evangelical/Protestant minority groups themselves; anchor strictly to this letter’s own criterion (denial of the incarnation), not to confessional identity generally. |
| world (negative/Johannine sense) | κόσμος / kosmos | ordered system; humanity in rebellion against God | мир | High | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | True homonym collision with baseline’s мир = “peace” (1:3, same letter). Flag both occurrences for review together; English disambiguates automatically, Russian does not. |
| confess / acknowledge | ὁμολογέω / homologeō | to say the same thing as; to publicly affirm | исповедовать | Critical | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | Direct collision with исповедь, the Russian Orthodox sacrament of Confession of sins. Must be explicitly clarified on first use: doctrinal public affirmation, not sacramental confession of sin. |
| coming in the flesh (incarnation phrase) | ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί / erchomenon en sarki | coming/having come in flesh | пришедшего во плоти | Critical | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | Primary anchor text for baseline’s Critical doctrine term воплощение; forbidden substitution (never аватар) applies. Priority theologian review every occurrence. |
| antichrist | ἀντίχριστος / antichristos | against/in place of Christ | антихрист | Critical | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | 1:7 | Russian folk/apocalyptic culture has an active history of speculative single-figure antichrist-identification (Old Believer polemics, modern fringe political speculation); 2 John’s own present-tense, doctrinal definition (denial of incarnation = antichrist spirit, now, not one future individual) must be taught explicitly. |
| reward | μισθός / misthos | wages, earned payment; recompense | награда | Medium | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | 1:8 | Touches baseline’s Critical grace-works tension; risk of merit-framework misreading reinforced by Soviet-era award/honor connotations of награда. Must be taught within, not against, the baseline’s grace-works guidance. |
| go beyond / transgress (doctrinal innovation) | προάγω / proagō | to go ahead of, go before | преступающий | Medium | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | 1:9 | Synodal’s “transgressing” is an interpretive gloss; the Greek’s own picture is claiming doctrinal progress beyond the apostolic foundation. Preserve this “false progress” nuance in teaching commentary. |
| abide / remain | μένω / menō | to remain, stay, continue | пребывающий | High | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | 1:9 | Connects to baseline’s Critical caution on освящение/theosis participatory categories; 2 John’s own definition (abiding in the teaching) is doctrinal/confessional and must be foregrounded rather than left to default into a purely mystical-participatory sense. |
| teaching / doctrine (of Christ) | διδαχή / didachē | teaching, instruction, body of doctrine | учение | Medium | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | 1:9, 1:10 | Risk of flattening into “a religious teaching/philosophy among others” (учение is used broadly in Russian for any ideological system); must retain identity as the specific, exclusive, apostolically-transmitted body of truth. |
| receive into the house (hospitality) | λαμβάνω εἰς οἰκίαν / lambanō eis oikian | to take/receive into the house | принимать в дом | High | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | 1:10 | Collides with the deeply positive Russian cultural value of гостеприимство (hospitality); must be framed narrowly (doctrinally-scoped exception, not general anti-hospitality principle) to avoid cultural scandal or overgeneralization. |
| greet / withhold greeting (formal endorsement) | χαίρειν λέγειν / chairein legein | to say “Rejoice!” (standard greeting formula) | приветствовать (negated: не приветствовать) | High | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | 1:10, 1:11 | Idiom-handling flag: a literal “say ‘rejoice’” calque would obscure the formal-greeting/endorsement sense. Russian social convention treats greeting-refusal as unusually strong; scope must be explicitly limited to doctrinal non-endorsement, not general social shunning. |
| participate / share (in evil deeds) | κοινωνέω / koinōneō | to share in, have a part in | участвует | Critical | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | 1:11 | Mandatory forbidden substitution: never render with общение (reserved for positive Christian fellowship, baseline Low-risk term). Using общение here would dignify complicity in evil with sacred fellowship vocabulary. Flag for priority back-translation check. |
| evil works | ἔργα πονηρά / erga ponēra | wicked deeds | злые дела | Low | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | 1:11 | No false-friend risk; standard phrase. |
| paper and ink | χάρτης καὶ μέλαν / chartēs kai melan | writing materials of the period | бумага и чернила | Low | (material/cultural detail) | 1:12 | No doctrinal risk; reinforces the letter’s occasional, personal character for teaching purposes. |
| face to face (mouth to mouth) | στόμα πρὸς στόμα / stoma pros stoma | mouth to mouth (Hebraic idiom for direct speech) | устами к устам | Low | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ (relational context) | 1:12 | Idiom-handling: retain established Synodal literal-idiom form rather than modernizing to a flat “лично”; no misreading risk in Biblical register. |
| joy | χαρά / chara | joy, gladness | радость | Low | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:4 (cognate verb), 1:12 | No false-friend risk; note inclusio with 1:4’s ἐχάρην (same root) for teaching structure. |
| greet (ordinary closing greeting) | ἀσπάζομαι / aspazomai | to send greetings | приветствуют | Medium | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment (contrast) | 1:13 | Same Russian verb root as the withheld formal greeting of 1:10–11; doctrinal contrast (ordinary fellowship greeting vs. doctrinally-withheld endorsement-greeting) must be carried by context/commentary, not vocabulary choice. |
| elect sister | ἀδελφῆς… ἐκλεκτῆς / adelphēs eklektēs | chosen/elect sister | сестры… избранной | Medium | Walking in Truth and Love | 1:13 | Structural inclusio with 1:1’s “elect lady”; same избрание-root connection as that entry — cross-reference in teaching material rather than treating as an isolated detail. |
C. Risk Summary for 2 John
| Risk Tier | Count | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 6 | Human theologian review, every occurrence |
| High | 8 | Human theologian review |
| Medium | 9 | Native speaker review |
| Low | 6 | Automated review |
Critical-risk terms requiring human theologian review on every occurrence: истина/любовь pairing is High not Critical, but the following six are Critical — благодать (reused), Иисус/Христос/Бог (reused, Critical per baseline), Старец (elder), исповедовать (confess), пришедшего во плоти (incarnation phrase), антихрист (antichrist), участвует/κοινωνέω (participate in evil — forbidden-substitution rule).
Mandatory forbidden substitutions specific to 2 John (extending the baseline’s existing forbidden list):
- NEVER render κοινωνεῖ (1:11, complicity in evil works) with общение — reserved exclusively for positive Christian fellowship.
- NEVER render ὁμολογέω/исповедовать (1:7) without an explicit teaching note distinguishing doctrinal confession from the sacrament of Confession (исповедь).
- NEVER render мир in 1:7 (“world”) and 1:3 (“peace”) without disambiguating context, given the true homonym collision within a single short letter.
- NEVER let “reward” (награда, 1:8) or “abide” (пребывающий, 1:9) be taught in isolation from the baseline’s existing grace-works and sanctification/theosis cautions respectively.
This glossary extends, and does not contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. All baseline-recorded terms retain their exact recorded Russian renderings. New terms proposed here should be added to translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json at the start of Phase 2 processing for this curriculum, incrementing the translation memory version number per the AI Translation Requirements document’s Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions.
Critical Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: благодать
Transliteration: blagodat’
Doctrine: Trinitarian Greeting: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Rejected alternatives: милость, дар, везение, удача
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, rendering and risk tier unchanged. Apply baseline’s Palamite-uncreated-energies collision guidance unmodified. 2 John 1:3 specific note: благодать must remain visibly distinct from the newly introduced ἔλεος/милость (mercy) in the same verse — the two are not synonyms, and милость must never be read as a weaker restatement of благодать here.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Сын Божий
Transliteration: Syn Bozhiy
Doctrine: Sonship and Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: божественный посланник
Original: υἱὸς τοῦ πατρός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package as the abstract doctrine name, rendering and risk tier unchanged. 2 John 1:3’s own surface Synodal phrasing is the distinct historic form ‘Сына Отчего’ (see new entry son_of_the_father below) — do not harmonize the two phrasings; both affirm identical co-equal, eternal Sonship and should be cross-referenced explicitly in teaching material.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Иисус
Transliteration: Iisus
Doctrine: Sonship and Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Исус (Old Believer spelling, avoid)
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package; rendering unchanged. RISK ELEVATED from baseline’s Medium to Critical for this curriculum: 2 John’s entire doctrinal crisis (1:7) turns on a precise, uncontested public confession of this name together with Χριστός and ‘come in the flesh,’ making any imprecision here load-bearing for the whole letter, not just registerial. Never use Исус (Old Believer spelling).
Messiah
Approved rendering: Мессия
Transliteration: Messiya
Doctrine: Sonship and Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: спаситель мира (as a stand-alone substitute)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package; rendering unchanged (used alongside Христос, itself a proper name in everyday Russian). RISK ELEVATED from baseline’s High to Critical for this curriculum: in 2 John 1:7 and 1:9, Χριστός names precisely the object of the confession denied by deceivers and the content of ‘the teaching of Christ’ that is the letter’s boundary marker; re-surface the title-force explicitly, as the baseline already recommends for Romans’ messianic_promise doctrine.
God
Approved rendering: Бог
Transliteration: Bog
Doctrine: Trinitarian Greeting: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Rejected alternatives: Всевышний (acceptable poetic synonym only)
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package; rendering unchanged. RISK ELEVATED from baseline’s Medium to Critical for this curriculum: 2 John 1:9’s doctrinal test (‘does not have God’ / ‘has… the Father and the Son’) requires Бог to be read with a vivid, personal, relational referent contingent on doctrinal fidelity — not a generic religious-affiliation claim emptied by casual secular idiom, per the baseline’s registerial-flattening caution applied at higher stakes here.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: воплощение
Transliteration: voploshcheniye
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: аватар (never use), явление
Original: Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package as the abstract doctrine name; rendering unchanged. RISK ELEVATED from baseline’s Medium to Critical for this curriculum: 2 John 1:7 (‘пришедшего во плоти,’ see new entry below) is arguably the sharpest New Testament statement of this doctrine framed as a negative confessional test, making it this letter’s primary doctrinal anchor verse. Forbidden substitution (never аватар) applies at full force; Russian icon theology’s high cultural profile for a genuinely embodied incarnation remains a pastoral asset, per baseline.
Elder
Approved rendering: Старец
Transliteration: Starets
Doctrine: Apostolic and Pastoral Eldership
Rejected alternatives: пресвитер (shifts register toward formal ecclesiastical office, loses personal warmth)
Original: πρεσβύτερος
Category: Church
NEW term. Collides directly with the highly venerated Russian Orthodox devotional office of старец — a semi-charismatic spiritual elder credited with mystical discernment, healing, and prophetic insight (e.g. the Optina elders), a living, sought-after category in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, not a historical curiosity. The established Synodal rendering Старец (matching 3 John’s identical usage) must be retained, but this collision must be named explicitly in teaching material every time, exactly as the baseline names comparable collisions for вера and праведность — never assumed compatible.
Confess
Approved rendering: исповедовать
Transliteration: ispovedovat’
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: открыто признавать (considered as a descriptive paraphrase to sidestep the sacramental collision; rejected — breaks Synodal continuity and loses theological precision)
Original: ὁμολογέω
Category: Faith
NEW term (ὁμολογέω, 2 John 1:7). Serious, specific collision risk: Исповедь (same root) is the standard Russian name for the Orthodox sacrament of Confession of sins, one of the seven Mysteries, deeply embedded in devotional life. A reader may reflexively hear исповедующие as ‘those who go to Confession’ rather than ‘those who publicly affirm as true.’ No alternative verb captures ‘acknowledge as true’ as precisely, so исповедовать must be retained, but expository text must state explicitly, on first occurrence, that this means public doctrinal affirmation about Christ’s incarnation, not the sacrament of Confession. Single highest-risk ambiguity in this letter.
Come In The Flesh
Approved rendering: пришедшего во плоти
Transliteration: prishedshego vo ploti
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: явившегося в человеческом облике (too weak — implies mere appearance, docetic-adjacent)
NEW term, the specific verse phrase (ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί, 2 John 1:7) anchoring the abstract doctrine term воплощение (see incarnation entry above). This phrase is 2 John’s doctrinal center of gravity and should be flagged for priority theologian review every time it is processed. Forbidden substitution (never аватар for any incarnation-related language) applies at full force. Pastoral asset: Russian icon theology’s argument that God took a genuine, visible body aligns with, rather than opposes, this verse.
Antichrist
Approved rendering: антихрист
Transliteration: antikhrist
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Original: ἀντίχριστος
Category: Christology
NEW term (ἀντίχριστος, 2 John 1:7), transliterated loanword, fully established. Russian folk-religious and Old Believer polemical tradition has an unusually active, specific history of speculative single-figure antichrist-identification (historically: reforming tsars, Patriarch Nikon; today: fringe political speculation). 2 John applies this term to the PRESENT, distributed reality of incarnation-denying deceivers, not a single future eschatological individual; this narrower, present-tense definition must be stated explicitly every time, since readers will otherwise default to the folk-apocalyptic framework without noticing the substitution.
Participate In Evil
Approved rendering: участвует
Transliteration: uchastvuyet
Doctrine: Moral Complicity in False Teaching
Rejected alternatives: общение / сообщается в общении (FORBIDDEN — see fellowship entry above)
Original: κοινωνέω
Category: Sin
NEW term (κοινωνέω, 2 John 1:11). MANDATORY FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: this word shares its root with κοινωνία, the baseline’s established Low-risk positive term общение. общение must NEVER render κοινωνέω here — doing so would dignify complicity in another’s evil works with the same warm, sacred vocabulary reserved for koinonia with the saints, a serious doctrinal inversion unique to this verse. участвует (Synodal) is required; flag for priority back-translation check on every occurrence to confirm общение does not appear.
High Risk Terms
Election
Approved rendering: избрание
Transliteration: izbraniye
Doctrine: Divine Election of the Elect Community
Rejected alternatives: судьба, рок, предопределение (use only with careful qualification)
Original: ἐκλεκτός / ἐκλεκτή
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package as the abstract doctrine noun; rendering and risk tier unchanged. 2 John applies the same root adjectivally to persons/congregations addressed as ‘избранная’ (see new entries elect_lady and elect_sister below), forming a structural inclusio (1:1, 1:13); cross-reference explicitly to this baseline doctrine in teaching commentary.
Truth
Approved rendering: истина
Transliteration: istina
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Rejected alternatives: правда (too moral-experiential/subjective register), истинность (too abstract/philosophical)
Original: ἀλήθεια
Category: Faith
NEW term. Russian’s истина/правда split (metaphysical-absolute vs. moral-experiential, e.g. Dostoevsky’s pravda/istina contrast) risks истина drifting toward an abstract philosophical register, or toward an institutional claim that the Orthodox Church alone objectively ‘possesses’ truth. 2 John’s truth (1:1-4) is relational and christological — the specific, confessable, apostolic truth about who Christ is — and must be taught as such explicitly, not assumed from the word alone. Must always be paired with любовь as mutually defining terms per this letter’s own argument (vv. 1-6 vs. 7-11).
Love
Approved rendering: любовь
Transliteration: lyubov’
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Original: ἀγάπη
Category: Faith
NEW term. Russian любовь collapses Greek’s threefold ἀγάπη/ἔρως/φιλία distinction into one ordinary word spanning romantic through divine love, creating a flattening risk toward a sentimental/emotional register. 2 John 1:6 operationally defines love as obedient conduct according to the commandments (заповедь); this definition must be foregrounded explicitly every time любовь is taught in this letter, and любовь must never be presented as an independent virtue apart from истина.
Lady
Approved rendering: госпожа
Transliteration: gospozha
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Original: κυρία
Category: Church
NEW term (2 John 1:1, 1:5). Explicit false-friend flag: κυρία shares its root with the baseline’s Critical term κύριος → Господь (‘Lord’), but carries zero Lordship content here — it is a plain, respectful courtesy address. госпожа is correct and safe, but translators and reviewers must be told explicitly that this is unrelated to Christ’s Lordship despite the surface resemblance, to prevent an over-theologized misreading of routine address.
Deceiver
Approved rendering: обольститель
Transliteration: obol’stitel’
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: обманщик (acceptable plain-register gloss for lower-literacy contexts only, not primary rendering), сектант / представитель секты (never use)
Original: πλάνος
Category: Sin
NEW term (πλάνος, 2 John 1:7). Live cultural-political risk: adjacent vocabulary (секта, сектантство) is frequently applied in contemporary Russian public and state-media discourse — and at times official Orthodox commentary — to precisely the kind of Evangelical/Protestant minority congregations this curriculum serves. Anchor обольститель strictly and explicitly to this letter’s own stated criterion (denial of the incarnation, 1:7b) every time it is used; never let it stand as a generic label for confessional or institutional otherness, to avoid supplying vocabulary that could boomerang onto readers’ own congregations.
World
Approved rendering: мир
Transliteration: mir
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: вселенная (too cosmological/astronomical, loses Johannine moral coloring)
Original: κόσμος
Category: Sin
NEW term (κόσμος, 2 John 1:7). True homonym collision with мир = ‘peace’ (see peace entry above, 1:3), occurring only four verses earlier in the same letter with opposite theological valence. English disambiguates automatically (‘world’ vs. ‘peace’); Russian does not. Both occurrences must be flagged together for review with an explicit disambiguating translator’s note; this is one of the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities precisely because it is invisible to English-speaking reviewers.
Abide
Approved rendering: пребывающий
Transliteration: prebyvayushchiy
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Original: μένω
Category: Sanctification
NEW term (μένω, 2 John 1:9). Connects to the same Critical-risk axis the baseline documents for освящение/theosis: Russian Orthodox theology offers a strong participatory/ontological reading of ‘abiding in’ language (union with God via sacramental participation, обожение). 2 John 1:9 defines abiding explicitly as doctrinal/confessional fidelity to apostolic teaching about Christ, not primarily sacramental-mystical union; this must be foregrounded, not left to default silently into the participatory sense, per the baseline’s caution against blending освящение and обожение.
Receive Into House
Approved rendering: принимать в дом
Transliteration: prinimat’ v dom
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Original: λαμβάνω εἰς οἰκίαν
Category: Church
NEW term (λαμβάνω εἰς οἰκίαν, 2 John 1:10). Collides with гостеприимство/странноприимство, an unusually deep and positively-loaded Russian cultural value (the proverbial ‘bread and salt’ welcome to strangers and travelers). Expository text must state explicitly, every time: this is a narrow, doctrinally-scoped exception (denial of the incarnation specifically), not a general anti-hospitality principle overriding Scripture’s other, positive hospitality commands.
Greet Withhold
Approved rendering: не приветствовать
Transliteration: ne privetstvovat’
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Rejected alternatives: говорить ему «радуйся» (rejected literal calque — obscures the formal-greeting/endorsement sense)
Original: χαίρειν λέγειν
Category: Church
NEW term (negated χαίρειν λέγειν, 2 John 1:10-11). A literal ‘say to him “rejoice”’ calque would obscure the formal-greeting/public-endorsement sense. Russian social convention treats refusing to greet someone as an unusually strong, almost aggressive relational signal — stronger than the source culture’s convention — so expository text must explicitly narrow the scope to public doctrinal non-endorsement, never generalized social shunning of anyone theologically unfamiliar.
Medium Risk Terms
Father
Approved rendering: Отец
Transliteration: Otets
Doctrine: Trinitarian Greeting: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Rejected alternatives: батюшка (reserve exclusively for addressing an Orthodox priest)
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, rendering and risk tier unchanged. 2 John 1:3 (greeting) and 1:9 (doctrinal test: ‘has both the Father and the Son’) both depend on Отец naming the same personal, relational referent as in Romans; батюшка remains forbidden here as in the baseline.
Law
Approved rendering: закон
Transliteration: zakon
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: правило, заповедь (reserve for individual commandments)
Inherited from Romans package; rendering and risk tier unchanged. закон itself does not occur in 2 John’s Greek text (no occurrence of νόμος), but the заповедь/закон distinction this baseline entry establishes governs every occurrence of ἐντολή in 2 John (1:4, 1:5, 1:6 x2) — see new entry commandment below. закон must never be substituted for заповедь in this letter.
Peace
Approved rendering: мир
Transliteration: mir
Doctrine: Trinitarian Greeting: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Rejected alternatives: спокойствие, покой
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package; rendering and risk tier unchanged. CRITICAL 2 JOHN-SPECIFIC CONSISTENCY FLAG: this same short letter also uses мир for κόσμος (‘the world,’ 1:7 — see new entry world below) only four verses after this occurrence (1:3, ‘peace’). This is a true homonym collision concentrated within nine verses; both occurrences must be flagged together for review with an explicit disambiguating translator’s note, since English disambiguates automatically and Russian does not.
Commandment
Approved rendering: заповедь
Transliteration: zapoved’
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Rejected alternatives: закон (reserved exclusively for the Mosaic Law/Torah as a corpus, per baseline law entry)
Original: ἐντολή
Category: Faith
NEW term extending the baseline’s existing law/заповедь convention (see law entry above) to 2 John’s specific usage. Every occurrence of ἐντολή in this letter (1:4, 1:5, 1:6 x2) is rendered заповедь; закон never appears, since 2 John never uses νόμος. This is exactly the context the baseline anticipated when it reserved заповедь for individual commandments.
Walk
Approved rendering: ходящих / поступали
Transliteration: khodyashchikh / postupali
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Rejected alternatives: harmonizing both occurrences to a single verb (rejected — breaks established Synodal precedent)
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Faith
NEW term. The existing Synodal tradition itself renders the identical Greek verb περιπατέω with two different Russian verbs within six verses: ходящих (1:4) and поступали (1:6, x2). This is an accepted feature of the received Synodal text, not an inconsistency to be corrected; translators must retain both forms exactly as they stand and be told explicitly that the variation is intentional continuity with Synodal precedent.
Elect Lady
Approved rendering: избранная госпожа
Transliteration: izbrannaya gospozha
Doctrine: Divine Election of the Elect Community
NEW term (2 John 1:1). Combines a plain courtesy address (κυρία, see lady entry below) with the baseline’s election vocabulary root (избрание). Present the individual-woman-vs-personified-congregation exegetical question as genuinely open in teaching material, since it affects whether ‘her children’ throughout the letter is read literally or corporately.
Mercy
Approved rendering: милость
Transliteration: milost’
Doctrine: Trinitarian Greeting: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Original: ἔλεος
Category: Salvation
NEW term (ἔλεος, 2 John 1:3). Important disambiguation: the baseline package lists милость only as a REJECTED substitute for grace (χάρις) in Romans, calling it ‘too weak’ for that specific concept. That guidance does NOT forbid милость as the correct, distinct rendering of the separate term ἔλεος, which appears independently alongside χάρις in this verse. Do not overcorrect by avoiding милость here; it must remain visibly distinct from благодать in the same sentence, exactly as the Greek keeps χάρις and ἔλεος distinct.
Reward
Approved rendering: награда
Transliteration: nagrada
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: заработанное (too explicitly commercial/earned)
Original: μισθός
Category: Salvation
NEW term (μισθός, 2 John 1:8). Risk of a merit-earned-payment misreading, reinforced by награда’s Soviet-era secondary sense as the standard word for state honors/medals, and by folk-piety merit frameworks. Directly touches the baseline’s Critical grace-works tension (Romans 4:4-5, 11:5-6); teach this verse together with, not apart from, that existing guidance — the ‘full reward’ is the fruit of persevering faithfully by grace, not payment earned independent of it.
Transgress Doctrine
Approved rendering: преступающий
Transliteration: prestupayushchiy
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: идущий вперёд (too literal, loses the negative theological force the Synodal gloss correctly supplies)
Original: προάγω
Category: Faith
NEW term (προάγω, 2 John 1:9). The Synodal ‘transgressing’ is an interpretive gloss of a verb whose literal picture is ‘going ahead/beyond.’ Retain преступающий (established Synodal text) but teach the ‘false progress’ nuance explicitly: 2 John targets a claim to doctrinal ADVANCEMENT beyond the apostolic foundation (‘we’ve moved beyond the old teaching’), not generic moral transgression — directly serving the Perseverance doctrine and guarding against a purely moralistic reading.
Teaching Of Christ
Approved rendering: учение
Transliteration: ucheniye
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Original: διδαχή
Category: Faith
NEW term (διδαχή, 2 John 1:9, 1:10). учение is standard but also applied broadly in Russian to any ideological/philosophical system (‘учение Маркса,’ ‘религиозное учение’ generically). Every occurrence should be qualified as учение Христово / учение о Христе and taught as the specific, exclusive, apostolically-transmitted body of doctrine this letter defends, not one religious philosophy among others — the same flattening risk the baseline notes for Евангелие.
Greet Ordinary
Approved rendering: приветствуют
Transliteration: privetstvuyut
Doctrine: Shared Joy in Christian Fellowship
Original: ἀσπάζομαι
Category: Church
NEW term (ἀσπάζομαι, 2 John 1:13). Shares the same Russian verb root (приветствовать) as the withheld formal greeting of 1:10-11 (see greet_withhold above). Linguistically defensible and Synodal-consistent, but expository material must make the doctrinal contrast explicit through commentary, not vocabulary substitution: withheld doctrinally-loaded endorsement-greeting (1:10-11) vs. warm ordinary closing fellowship-greeting (1:13).
Elect Sister
Approved rendering: сестры… избранной
Transliteration: sestry… izbrannoy
Doctrine: Divine Election of the Elect Community
NEW term (τῆς ἀδελφῆς σου τῆς ἐκλεκτῆς, 2 John 1:13). Same избрание-root connection as elect_lady (1:1), forming a deliberate structural inclusio closing the letter as it opened. Cross-reference explicitly in teaching material rather than treating as an isolated proper-name detail.
Son Of The Father
Approved rendering: Сына Отчего
Transliteration: Syna Otchego
Doctrine: Sonship and Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Сын Божий (correct doctrine, but do not substitute for this verse’s own established Synodal surface phrase)
NEW term, 2 John 1:3’s specific Synodal surface form of τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ πατρός, doctrinally identical to the baseline’s Critical son_of_god entry (Сын Божий) but using the distinct archaic possessive-adjective phrasing ‘Отчего’ (‘of the Father’s’). Both phrasings affirm identical co-equal, eternal Sonship; do not harmonize the wording — retain this verse’s own established form — but teach the doctrinal identity with son_of_god explicitly in commentary.
Low Risk Terms
Fellowship
Approved rendering: общение
Transliteration: obshcheniye
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: дружба, коллектив (avoid Soviet-collective connotation)
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package; rendering and risk tier unchanged for this term’s own positive sense. MANDATORY 2 JOHN-SPECIFIC FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: общение must NEVER be used to render κοινωνέω in 2 John 1:11 (complicity in evil works) — see new entry participate_in_evil below, which is Critical risk precisely because of this collision risk. общение remains correctly usable only for genuine positive Christian fellowship elsewhere.
Children
Approved rendering: дети
Transliteration: deti
Doctrine: Divine Election of the Elect Community
Original: τέκνα
Category: Church
NEW term (2 John 1:1, 1:4, 1:13). No false-friend risk. The corporate/spiritual sense (congregational members, not necessarily literal biological offspring) should be flagged explicitly on first use so readers do not assume a literal family narrative runs throughout the letter.
Evil Works
Approved rendering: злые дела
Transliteration: zlyye dela
Doctrine: Moral Complicity in False Teaching
Original: ἔργα πονηρά
Category: Sin
NEW term (ἔργα πονηρά, 2 John 1:11). Standard, unambiguous phrase with no false-friend risk in Russian.
Joy
Approved rendering: радость
Transliteration: radost’
Doctrine: Shared Joy in Christian Fellowship
Original: χαρά
Category: Faith
NEW term (χαρά, 2 John 1:4 cognate verb ἐχάρην, 1:12). Standard, unambiguous, low risk. Teaching note: link 1:12’s ‘our joy made full’ back to 1:4’s ‘I rejoiced greatly’ (same root) to preserve the letter’s inclusio structure — joy at faithfulness (opening) answered by hoped-for shared joy in person (closing). Has additional strong positive resonance with Russian Orthodox Paschal joy tradition (‘Христос воскресе!’), a cultural asset for this doctrine.
Paper And Ink
Approved rendering: бумага и чернила
Transliteration: bumaga i chernila
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
NEW term (χάρτης καὶ μέλαν, 2 John 1:12). Purely material/cultural reference with no doctrinal risk; reinforces the letter’s occasional, personal character (a real letter to real recipients, not a timeless abstract treatise) for teaching purposes.
Face To Face
Approved rendering: устами к устам
Transliteration: ustami k ustam
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: лично / лицом к лицу (acceptable modern gloss only; do not replace the established Biblical idiom)
NEW term (στόμα πρὸς στόμα, 2 John 1:12), a Hebraic idiom for direct personal speech. Retain the established Synodal literal-idiom form rather than modernizing to a flat ‘лично’; no risk of a literal ‘mouths touching’ misreading, since устами к устам is already a recognized Biblical-register idiom in Russian.
Referenced passages