[1] The most important holy sites of the religion are the Seven Shrines of Abkhazia, each one having its own priestly clan, where rituals and prayers began to be restored in the 1990s.
[4][5] The traditional Abkhaz religion was actually never completely wiped out; circles of priests, whose activity was kept secret,[6] passed on traditional knowledge and rites in the times when Christianity and Islam became dominant in the region, and later in Soviet times of anti-religion.
[7] Since the 1980s, and later in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Abkhaz native religion was resurrected by the joint efforts of priests who began to resurface, rural people reactivating local rituals, and urban intellectuals supporting Paganism as an integral part for a reawakening of the Abkhaz ethnic and cultural identity.
[9] With tensions growing, more and more Abkhazians began associating Orthodox Christianity with the Georgians, and chose to reject it, turning to the native gods.
[9] The eventual victory of Abkhazia in the 1992–93 war with Georgia catalyzed the Neopagan revival.