can you still have water during the day? What about tea? For example at workWater and tea do not break this fast (though they do technically break the Communion fast. However, it is a common mitigation of the Communion fast to allow water.)
- how strict is this? If you have a snack at lunch is it a sin or does it depend on the reason? Is being really hungry and tired at work a reason?It's not strict at all in the moral sense. The fasting rules are an aspiration in their fullness... a discipline for growing in virtue, not a penal system. See this important article "
Fasting for Non Monastics [
pravoslavie.ru]".
- do most lay people get permission from their priest to eat a snack or two during the day or a meal? I read the fast came from a monastery.. I'd like to follow it but what if I'm not strong enough?See the article above. Yes, most people mitigate both the quantity rules and the rules about the types of foods and this mitigation is well within the tradition. It is so well within the tradition that it is probably not even neccesary to have a specific permission, though I, for instance, did discuss what kind of fast I would keep with my priest.
- if you are visiting family and they are not following the fast and you are given 3 meals and meat should you just accept? Would that be charity and not a sin?Generally speaking, that would be acceptable (that is, so long as you are not accepting from a motive of gluttony, but that's not what it sounds like) and there is even a Russian tradition of mitigating the fast in this way when you are in the places where non-believers live as it is difficult or impossible to keep the fast there.
For the assuaging of anyone's conscience, the Eastern Code of Canon Law provides a rule that is applicable in your situation:
"Canon 882 - On the days of penance the Christian faithful are obliged to observe fast or abstinence in the manner established by the particular law of their Church sui iuris.
"Canon 883 - §1. The Christian faithful who are outside the territorial boundaries of their own Church sui iuris can adopt fully for themselves the feast days and days of penance which are in force where they are staying.
§2. In families in which the parents are enrolled in different Churches sui iuris, it is permitted to observe the norms of one or the other Church, in regard to feast days and days of penance."
As a Russian Catholic living in the United States you are outside of the territorial boundaries of the Russian Catholic Church and can adopt the fasting rules of the place that you live, that is the modern Roman rules, which are quite minimal. Then anything you do on top of that would be a bonus.