"In our community, even eating meat on Friday and women wearing head cover at church was considered a commandment of God....and of course the church. EdT"

The first was never a commandment of God but a precept of the Church (with which God expected Catholics to comply). In fact, it remains so - the only change is the schedule - now it's only on Ash Wednesday (coming up next week - buy that salmon filet now before they're gone!) and Fridays in Lent.

The second was neither, only a custom of the times.

Also, I'm not sure that many Anglicans were willing to die over the denial of transsubstantiation as a previous poster claimed. Anglicans like to stress that they believe in CONsubstantiation rather than TRANS, but that is largely a matter of semantics. Both Churches believe in the Real Presence, and the best explanation is that we believe that Christ is present in the Eucharist becasue He told us that He would be. Those of faith require no further explanation.