![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Left-Facing_Armenian_Eternity_Sign_UC_058E_SVG.svg/640px-Left-Facing_Armenian_Eternity_Sign_UC_058E_SVG.svg.png&w=640&q=50)
Hetanism
Armenian Neopaganism / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Left-Facing_Armenian_Eternity_Sign_UC_058E_SVG.svg/320px-Left-Facing_Armenian_Eternity_Sign_UC_058E_SVG.svg.png)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Hetan_priest_officiating_at_Garni_Temple%2C_Armenia_34.jpg/640px-Hetan_priest_officiating_at_Garni_Temple%2C_Armenia_34.jpg)
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]