Sediari Sediari The Sediari pontifici () were chair-bearers of the pope on the sedia gestatoria. Originally servants of the papal household they later became a lay confraternity. The origins of the chair-bearers lie in medieval times, earlier even than the Swiss Guards. The earlier red-dressed papal grooms or palafrenieri were a different group of papal servants, originally liverymen for the papal carriage, then an influential Confraternity, then finally merged with the sediari. The sediari and parafrenieri constituted a Confraternity from 1378. Pius IV allowed them in 1565 to erect the chiesa di Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri, designed by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola.
Religion in Armenia the 1st century AD. Armenia became the first country to establish Christianity as its state religion when, in an event traditionally dated to 301 AD, St. Gregory the Illuminator convinced Tiridates III, the king of Armenia, to convert to Christianity. Before this, the dominant religion was Armenian paganism, under the theological influence of Zoroastrianism. Hetanism (Հեթանոսություն, "Hetanosutyun") is a neo-ethnic religion movement in Armenia. Adherents call themselves "Hetans" ("Hetanos" հեթանոս, the Old Armenian biblical term loaned from Greek ἐθνικός "gentile"). The movement traces its origins back to the work of the early-20th-century political philosopher and revolutionary Garegin Nzhdeh and his