Orthodox Fasting. The Fasting Rule of the Orthodox Church. The Church's traditional teaching on fasting is not widely known or followed in our day.
For those Orthodox Christians who are seeking to keep a more disciplined fast, the following information may be helpful. Though the rules may appear quite strict to those who have not seen them before, they were developed with all of the faithful, not only monks, in mind. (Monks do not eat meat, so rules regarding the eating of meat cannot have been written with them in mind. On Fasting. Fasting, in our days, has become one of the most neglected spiritual values.
Because of misunderstandings regarding the nature of fasting, because of confused and reversed priorities in its use, many of today's Orthodox Christians fast very little, or disregard fasting altogether. The Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church which is scheduled to be convened in the near future has placed the problem of fasting as one of the first items on its agenda.