Arivurdis

(children of the sun) were a sect found in Asia, and particularly in Armenia and the adjacent countries, where they had maintained themselves from the olden times; having sprung from a mixture of Zoroastrianism with a few elements of Christianity. They derived their name from their worship of the sun. ''Between 833 and 854 this sect took a new form and a new impulse from a person named Sembat, who settled at Thondrac, whence his sect received. the name of Thondracians (q.v.).