When the season of Lent is at hand, it is observed in the following manner. Now whereas with us the forty days preceding Easter are observed, here they observe the eight weeks before Easter. This is the reason why they observe eight weeks: On Sundays and Saturdays they do not fast, except on the one Saturday which is the vigil of Easter, when it is necessary to fast. Except on that day, there is absolutely no fasting here on Saturdays at any time during the year. And so, when eight Sundays and seven Saturdays have been deducted from the eight weeks””for it is necessary, as I have just said, to fast on one Saturday””there remain forty-one days which are spent in fasting, which are called here “eortae,” that is to say, Lent.
This is a summary of the fasting practices here during Lent. There are some who, having eaten on Sunday after the dismissal, that is, at the fifth or sixth hour, do not eat again for the whole week until Saturday, following the dismissal from the Anastasis. These are the ones who observe the full week’s fast. Having eaten once in the morning on Saturday, they do not eat again in the evening, but only on the following day, on Sunday, that is, do they eat after the dismissal from the church at the fifth hour or later. Afterwards, they do not eat again until the following Saturday, as I have already said. Such is their fate during the Lenten season that they take no leavened bread (for this cannot be eaten at all), no olive oil, nothing which comes from trees, but only water and a little flour soup. And this is what is done throughout Lent.
–From the Travels of Egeria, Abbess, and Pilgrim to Jerusalem in Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, ed. J. Robert Wright (new York: Church Publishing, 1991) [Hat tip to the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona]
They were pretty tight on fasting once upon a time. In theory we Orthodox still observe those rules. However in practice few outside of monasteries these days keep the fast so strictly.
Under the mercy,
John