page_title: Hetanism
section_title: Relations with Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Hetanism / Relations with Christianity
caption_attribution_description: Հայերեն: Հայկական ժողովրդական պար Գառնու տաճարի դիմաց, հայ հեթանոսական նոր տարին նշելիս English: Armenian folk dance in front of Garni Temple in celebration of Armenian neo-pagan new year
context_page_description: The Armenian Native Faith, also termed Armenian Neopaganism or Hetanism, is a modern Pagan new religious movement that harkens back to the historical, pre-Christian belief systems and ethnic religions of the Armenians. The followers of the movement call themselves "Hetans" or Arordi, meaning the "Children of Ari", also rendered as "Arordiners" in some scholarly publications.
  The Arordiner movement has antecedents in the early 20th century, with the doctrine of Tseghakron of the philosopher and nationalist political theorist Garegin Nzhdeh. 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". Neopaganism expert Victor Schnirelmann estimated the following of Armenian neopaganism to be "no more than a few hundred people".
context_section_description: The relations between the Armenian Native Faith movement and the Armenian Apostolic Church have been good and collaborative, since both share the common interest of protecting and promoting Armenian identity, especially against what are perceived as disruptive foreign forces infiltrating the country, such as Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. The Armenian Apostolic Church generally sees Arordiners as allies. A high-ranking spokesman of the Armenian Apostolic Church declared:
  The Armenian Church has an unequivocal stance on sectarians (i.e. Protestants et al.), but we do not interfere into pagan affairs.
  Similarly, the head of an Armenian institution catering to the victims of destructive cults declared:
  The Armenian nation must remember its pre-Christian past, and Ara's Children help them remember. They also support the Armenian Apostolic Church in its fight against destructive sects.
  Armenian Native Faith believers' attitude towards Christianity oscillates between two positions: The critique of the religion's role in Armenian history, and the conditional acceptance of the Armenian Apostolic Church as a national institution. Christianity is criticised for having destroyed the rich and highly developed ancient Armenian culture, replacing the values of courage, martial spirit and honour with those of humility, obedience and modesty, thus causing the collapse of Armenian statehood and condemning the nation to centuries of subordination to foreign powers, migrations, persecutions and massacres. According to the strongest accusations, Christianity is responsible for the "first genocide of the Armenians", which coincided with its forceful introduction in the fourth century.
  At the same time, the Armenian Apostolic Church is considered an institution peculiar to the Armenian nation, and the fruit of a synthesis of Christian and indigenous elements, in which the former represent just the surface. The Arordiners find proof of this in the Church's prayers devoted to the Sun and light, in Church festivals overlapping indigenous Armenian festivals, and in the practice of matagh, Christian animal sacrifice. Moreover, the Arordiners believe that the Armenian alphabet, which Church historiography holds to have been invented by the monk Mesrop Mahtots, is actually an elaboration of ancient Armenian symbolism based on the motif of the swastika.
  Arordiners generally do not have problems visiting Armenian churches and treating them as holy places, since many of them were built on the site of pre-Christian temples. Furthermore, some figures of the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church are revered as Arordiners in disguise: The catholicoi (high-ranking bishops) Vazgen I (in charge 1954–1994) and Garegin I (1995–1999). The former was a supporter of Nzhdeh and on his tombstone, instead of a cross, he has a letter of the Armenian alphabet which is considered a variant of the swastika and symbolic of seven Armenian gods. The latter is said to have visited Garni before his death and, despite being terminally ill, to have walked alone to the temple.
caption: A ritual dance at the Temple of Garni.
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