Holy Week is the last week of Holy Lent. This is the time by which every believing Christian has a special thrill, because it is on Holy Week that the Church remembers the last days of the Savior's earthly life.
The very naming of the last week before the Holy Sunday of the Resurrection of the Holy Week indicates that the last week of Lent is dedicated to the passions (sufferings) of Christ. In large cathedrals, temples and monasteries, daily services begin. In smaller parishes, services begin on Wednesday (from the day when the Church remembers the betrayal of Christ by Judas). However, all the days of Holy Week have a meaning and deep meaning for a believer.
The Gospels give us guidance on the following events of the last week of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ. On great Monday, Christ expelled the merchants from the temple, urging not to make the den of robbers from the house of God. The temple, first of all, is a place of prayer, however, in the New Testament times of the earthly life of the Savior, the Jerusalem temple was a house of commerce. Then Christ in the temple healed the sick. Also, the evangelist Matthew narrates the curse of the barren fig tree and the important words of Christ that anyone who has a firm faith can even move mountains.
On Great Tuesday, the Lord announced to the disciples some signs of His second coming. Jesus Christ prophesied of wars, natural disasters, and the appearance of various false prophets. An important gospel narrative of Christ was the narrative of the sacrifice of a poor widow, who was able to donate a negligible amount to the temple (two mites). Christ drew the attention of the apostles to the fact that the widow made a feasible sacrifice to God not from material excess, but from the heart.
The passionate environment is a time of betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas. One of the twelve closest disciples of the Savior sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver.
Holy Thursday is a special day for every Orthodox Christian. It was on this day that the sacrament of holy communion by the Lord Jesus Christ was established. Currently, believers are trying to partake of the holy mysteries of Christ on this day in memory of the establishment of the Eucharist. On Holy Thursday, Jesus Christ prayed to God the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. During prayer, the Lord asked that the cup of suffering pass by, however, the Savior humbly accepted the will of God the Father. This important point clearly expresses the teachings of the Orthodox Church that there were two natures in the Lord Jesus Christ - divine and human. As a man Christ was afraid of death, it was unnatural for Him (the Lord did not commit a single sin). However, human will and human nature in Christ assumes the proper great deed of suffering for the sins of all mankind.
Good Friday is the day when a tragedy of cosmic proportions occurred. This day is considered the strictest fasting period in the life of a believer, because it is on Good Friday that the Creator accepts death from his creation. The Lord Jesus Christ dies on the cross for the sins of mankind. On Good Friday, a great atoning sacrifice is offered to the entire Holy Trinity for the sins of all people.
Orthodox tradition says that the great passionate Sabbath is the time in which Christ was in hell. There, the Lord preached to the dead people, after which the Savior led the people who believed in Him from hell, thereby giving humanity the opportunity to regain paradise.
