[livius]

Yes, that's true.

I think that it's a sort of "secret handshake" with other Orthodox, though, and not eating fish on Fridays was the same for Catholics. Eating meat on Fridays was such a well-known prohibition (because it is very ancient) that anyone who specifically ate fish or non-meat meals on Friday virtually identified themselves as Catholic, something that was not viewed as a very positive thing in many parts of this country and often exposed them to ridicule and dislike.

A friend who grew up in a Protestant family in Pittsburgh quite some time ago once told me that the only regional food tradition she could recall was eating bacon on Fridays - she said it was probably to prove that you were neither Jewish nor Catholic, both of these being groups regarded with suspicion or even hostility by the Protestant majority.

And I remember being in situations where, when you saw somebody order the non-meat meal on a Friday, you knew there was a fellow Catholic there. To say nothing of the jokes everybody made about their mother's Friday tuna casserole...

[MarMema]

Just a few other things...

Do you or did you, in the RC church, practise sexual abstinence as well?

And I wanted to share this stress diet with you, from a Russian Orthodox church in Texas.

[MarMema]

And I remember being in situations where, when you saw somebody order the non-meat meal on a Friday, you knew there was a fellow Catholic there. To say nothing of the jokes everybody made about their mother's Friday tuna casserole...

Exactly. Just like our jokes - you can tell someone is Orthodox because they don't flinch when water is thrown at them. I see these shared experiences as an essential part of unity within the church. And I see this unity as something that provides a backbone for the rest of what Christ wants from us.