Fasting

Question: 

I had a question regarding the consummation of chicken on Fridays during lent, as far as I have known we are not allowed to eat anything but fish , but recently a co-worker advised me that she has always eaten chicken on Fridays during lent due to the fact that they lay eggs. Is that true?

Dr. Alexander Roman alex@unicorne.org

In actual fact, chicken is classified as meat and so are . . . eggs!

Anything that has a backbone is, according to Eastern Church law, considered a meat.  Also, anything that is a meat by-product, including eggs and anything made from milk.

And, yes, fish is also a meat as it has a backbone.  However, shellfish is acceptable.

In the West, fish became an acceptable food for fasting days over time.  When Jesuit missionaries arrived in India, the Eastern Christians there were positively scandalized that they allowed the eating of fish on Fridays, however.

In some areas of the United States, in Louisiana and in Detroit, there is even permission to consume muskrats on fasting days since they are always living in water . . .  I did not make that up!

But "fast food" in the West has come to mean hamburgers and fries on the go rather than items that can be consumed during fast-days.  Fasting is not appreciated as it once was, since only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast-days now.

The Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann was reflected on the question whether bishops may release their faithful from the laws of fasting.

He responded in the negative saying that if it could be proven that fasting somehow benefits God, then, and only then, could Christians be absolved from observing the laws of fasting by their bishops.

However, since we know that fasting is to our great spiritual benefit, then such spiritual medicine cannot be discarded by bishops who act as spiritual physicians of our souls.

St Seraphim of Sarov once said that if someone does not observe the laws of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays and during the Great Fast - then that person is simply not a Christian!

Ukrainian Orthodoxy