From the Monday after Palm Sunday, Holy Week begins for Orthodox Christians. Also called "The Week of Suffering", it is the last week of Jesus Christ's earthly life.
The last week of Great Lent is called Holy Week by the church because it is dedicated to the commemoration of the last days of the earthly life of the Christian savior Jesus Christ - his sufferings, death on the cross and burial.
It begins with his solemn entry into Jerusalem and ends with his Resurrection. Each day of this week is called Holy - Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday and so on. It is the last of the Easter fast, and on every single day of it, special services are performed by the church. According to the Orthodox calendar, this week ends with Easter.
In Old Bulgarian "passion" is "suffering". For this reason, the days of Christ's sufferings from the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem for Passover until his death are called "passion week". Approaching the climax of this week, each of the days from Monday to Saturday is called Great.
On Great Monday, Jesus Christ entered the Jerusalem temple and found it full of merchants. The Son of God expelled the merchants because the temple is a house of prayer, not a marketplace. The Gospel talks about Jesus' sermon in the temple and the curse he uttered on the barren fig tree - a symbol of the human soul, which does not know prayer, or repentance and does not bear spiritual fruit. /BGNES
