Hetanism

The Armenian Native Faith, also termed Armenian Neopaganism or Hetanism (Armenian: Հեթանոսութիւն Hetanosutiwn; a cognate word of "Heathenism"), is a modern Pagan new religious movement that harkens back to the historical, pre-Christian belief systems and ethnic religions of the Armenians.^[1] The followers of the movement call themselves "Hetans" (Armenian: հեթանոս Hetanos, which means "Heathen", thus "ethnic", both of them being loanwords from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos)^[2] or Arordi, meaning the "Children of Ari",^[2] also rendered as "Arordiners" in some scholarly publications.^[3]

The Arordiner movement has antecedents in the early 20th century, with the doctrine of Tseghakron (Ցեղակրոն, literally "national religion") of the nationalist political theorist ^[4][5] Garegin Nzhdeh.^[6] It took an institutional form in 1991, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union in a climate of national reawakening, when the Armenologist Slak Kakosyan founded the "Order of the Children of Ari" (Arordineri Ukht).^[6] Neopaganism expert Victor Schnirelmann estimated the following of Armenian neopaganism to be "no more than a few hundred people".^[7]