Hrag Vartanian

I’d heard of these people before but Cilicia.com’s Raffi Kojian recently revisited the little known medieval Armenian hippies who believed in free love, the mortality of the soul and were anti-marriage. There’s a book on Abril Bookstore’s website (half the price of the one on Amazon) about this little known group.

Slowly the diversity of Armenian history is emerging out into the open after decades of silence on the subject, or being relegated to academia. The Tondrakians are actually considered by many as an off-shoot of the Paulicians, a very influential Christian community with unconventional (for the time) views. More here.

Unfortunately, the Tondrakians and the Paulicians were often persecuted by doctrine-obsessed churches (as seen as in the manuscript image I included above).