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Imperial Cult

DEITY God-Emperor of Mankind

 OBJECTS OF WORSHIP Golden Throne
Imperial icons and relics

SACRED WORLDS Terra

Ophelia VII

CLERGY Adeptus Ministorum

ESTABLISHMENT Great Crusade era (As the Lectitio Divinitatus) / Mid-32nd

Millennium (As oAcial Imperial state religion)

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“
When the people forget their duty they are no longer Human and become something less than
beasts. They have no place in the bosom of Humanity nor in the heart of the Emperor. Let
them die and be forever forgotten.

FROM PRIME EDICTS OF THE HOLY SYNOD OF THE ADEPTUS MINISTORUM

The Imperial Cult, also called the Cult Imperialis in High Gothic, is the oAcial and only state
religion of the Imperium of Man. It is devoted to the worship of the Emperor of Mankind as the
ascended divinity and saviour of Humanity.

Those who believe in the cult's teachings hold that the Emperor is a living spiritual entity and the
only true god of Mankind. The Imperial Cult is led by the state church known as the Adeptus
Ministorum, also called the "Ecclesiarchy," whose priests devote their lives to spreading the Word
of the Emperor and doing His will.
Almost all variants on the Imperial Cult are tolerated by the Ecclesiarchy's priests, but all worship
of the God-Emperor must comply with certain Imperial values including, but not limited to:
unquestioning political loyalty to the High Lords of Terra and the various agencies of the
Adeptus Terra, diligence in carrying out the Emperor's will, belief in the Emperor's ultimate
divinity, and conscious contributions to the Imperium's overall well-being, even if this means
nothing more than helping to improve one's own homeworld or even just home city or town.

In the 41st Millennium the Imperial Cult has almost unrivaled political power and in[uence within
the Imperium. Heresy against it is punished severely. The religion is formally administered by the
clerics of the Ecclesiarchy.

The Imperial Cult is the Imperium's state religion, and in many ways the faith is the state itself
since it is the glue that binds Humanity together in the service of the Emperor and the
Imperium.

The precepts of the Imperial Cult, called the Imperial Creed, include the belief that all of
Humanity must be brought into the Imperium wherever in the galaxy Humans still live outside its
bounds, the absolute abhorrence of sentient aliens as dangers to Humanity's rightful
domination of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the realisation that the existence of unsanctioned
psychic powers and Human mutation is a dire threat to the Human species which must be
controlled or eradicated.

All of these precepts have their origins in what the Emperor Himself preached during the Great
Crusade of the late 30th Millennium, though they ignore the Emperor's most fundamental
teaching of the Imperial Truth that He was not divine and that Human beings should give up
superstition and the trappings of organised religion in favour of scienti^c and atheistic
rationalism.

Yet, because of the existence of Chaos and the true, psychic nature of the Immaterium, the
Imperial Cult has ironically proven to be a powerful source of protection for Humanity from the
dangers presented by the Ruinous Powers.
 Learn More

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History

While the ordinary citizen of the Imperium believes that the Emperor has always been venerated
as the immortal and omnipotent god of Humanity throughout the history of Mankind, Imperial
historitors and the battle-brothers of the Space Marine Chapters know that this was not always
the case.

Icon of the Adeptus Ministorum

At the beginning of the Emperor's Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium, the Imperium of
Man functioned very di`erently.
Firstly, there was no Ecclesiarchy, no state church, and the veneration of the Emperor, in the
form of a cult known as the Lectitio Divinitatus, was frowned upon and outright condemned by
the Emperor Himself.

The oAcial Imperial doctrine, known as the Imperial Truth, was that the Emperor was an
extremely powerful being, the rightful ruler of all Mankind, and the perfect physical, mental and
spiritual embodiment of Humanity, but no matter how supreme, he was still only a Human being.

During the Great Crusade, however, many ordinary Imperial citizens found that the light of
reason and truth brought by the Emperor was not enough to ful^ll their basic Human
psychological desires or provide protection from the real supernatural threats that existed in the
universe, and so they took to worshiping Him as a deity to ful^ll their spiritual needs.

During the Great Crusade, many di`erent religious cults appeared throughout the Imperium
worshiping the Emperor of Mankind as a god, each with their own subtle variations and
di`erences in doctrine. These forms of worship appeared ^rst on those primitive planets that
had regressed technologically during the Age of Strife.

The numbers of these cults multiplied immensely with the Emperor's ultimate sacri^ce to save
Mankind from the Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy and His subsequent incarceration
upon the Golden Throne, which was hailed as the Emperor's "ascension" back to full divinity.

Most of these cults would gradually fade away, while others prospered, eventually absorbing the
weaker ones. The more successful Emperor-worship cults spread their forms of worship to other
planets.

The strongest of all the early Imperial cults was the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. This cult had
the advantage over the others in that it was based on Terra and that its leader had been a
successful and respected oAcer of the Imperial Army who had fought at the Siege of Terra,
defending the heart of the Imperium. This leader had re-named himself "Fatidicus" and had
begun to preach his teachings concerning the divinity of the Emperor to anyone who would
listen.

This faith spread among the members of the Imperial Army and the Armada Imperialis, but also
to lowly scribes and minor adepts of the Imperial Administration (the Administratum).
The faith was then spread by these individuals to other worlds. When Fatidicus died at the age of
120 Terran years, the Temple had more than a billion followers on Terra and untold faithful
throughout the Imperium's Segmentum Solar.

In the wake of the chaos and anarchy of the Horus Heresy, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor
provided a message of hope and reuni^cation through a common faith.

Cults who rejected being absorbed, or who couldn't be absorbed, saw themselves being
persecuted by fanatical mobs who preferred the Saviour Emperor theology. OAcially, the Temple
rejected this violence performed in its name.

This development culminated in the early 32nd Millennium, by which time almost two-thirds of
the Imperium's population followed the teachings of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor, the
exceptions being the Space Marines, who have never formally acknowledged the divinity of the
Emperor in line with His wishes and the Adeptus Mechanicus, who had their own form of
worship in the Cult Mechanicus.

The Temple's importance, in[uence, and power rapidly outmatched any other Imperial sect
dedicated to Emperor-worship.

An Imperial Guard oAcer worshiping an ancient painted mural depicting the God-Emperor.
The Emperor had become an object of general religious veneration across the Imperium
following the Horus Heresy and His internment within the Golden Throne. Over the solar decades
after that con[ict many individual Imperial cults sprang up throughout the Imperium, with their
central theme being the redemption of Humanity through the Emperor's self-sacri^ce.

After a few hundred Terran years, a single church was formed from the uni^cation of a number
of smaller cults with the Temple of the Saviour Emperor, which gradually absorbed the main
body of diverse believers in the Emperor's divinity.

In the 32nd Millennium this cult was ^nally recognised as the oAcial state religion of the
Imperium, granted the oAcial governmental title of the "Adeptus Ministorum" (though it
continued to be referred to informally as the "Ecclesiarchy") and incorporated into the Adeptus
Terra once the High Lords of Terra realized how useful the religion could be in protecting,
unifying and energising the citizens of the Imperium from the myriad dangers of the galaxy.

Remaining religious cults which di`ered in their primary theology from the Imperial Creed taught
by the Ecclesiarchy, such as the Temple's one-time theological rival the Confederation of Light,
were persecuted and mostly destroyed by the ^rst of the Wars of Faith called by the Ministorum.

A few centuries later, in the middle of the 32nd Millennium, Ecclesiarch Veneris II received a seat
amongst the High Lords of Terra on the Senatorum Imperialis, and after 300 Terran years, this
seat was made permanent.

The political power of the Ecclesiarchy within the Imperium continued to grow, increasing its
hold over the minds and beliefs of the Imperial citizenry. Those who would not follow its
teachings were declared unbelievers and Heretics, ostracized, and on occasion even executed.

The vast interstellar territories of the Imperium were organised into dioceses led by the
Ecclesiarchy's cardinals. These powerful religious and political ^gures were responsible for
Missionaries and Preachers on hundreds of worlds. Lavish shrines, impressive temples, and
majestic cathedrals dedicated to the God-Emperor of Mankind were built throughout the
Imperium.

Millions of religious pilgrims soon began making their way across the galaxy to visit particularly
important religious locations, such as the world where a particular Imperial Saint had performed
their most famous miracle.

In time, the sheer number of pilgrims who arrived on certain worlds became an economic
activity in itself and entire planets were dedicated to worship and directly ruled by the Adeptus
Ministorum as Shrine Worlds. Particularly important Shrine Worlds could become the religious
seat of an entire diocese and so a Cardinal would take up residence there. These planets
became known as Cardinal worlds.

The only threat to the theological domination of the Ecclesiarchy had ever been the
Confederation of Light. Based upon the planet Dimmamar, this penitent sect's ideals of poverty,
sel[essness and humble living clearly contradicted the dominant teachings of the Ecclesiarchy,
whose view was that sacri^ces of wealth and money to the Adeptus Ministorum in taxes, tithes
and other gifts were necessary to enhance Imperial citizens' access to salvation and ensure that
the Emperor's light reached every corner of the galaxy through His missions.

In truth, the Confederation's theology directly opposed the e`orts of the ecclesiarch and the
cardinals in their attempts to ensure that the Ecclesiarchy remained the wealthiest and most
politically powerful institution of the Imperium.

The Confederation proved too diAcult for Ministorum agents to in^ltrate, and the Ecclesiarchy of
the time turned to violence, supported in this e`ort by the unanimous vote of the Senatorum
Imperialis, who declared the onset of the ^rst War of Faith in the 32nd Millennium, largely to
ensure that Imperial political stability was not damaged by the emergence of religious plurality.

The entire Confederation was declared heretical and the forces of the Astra Militarum, the
Imperial Navy, and thousands of fanatical zealots from the Frateris Templar were unleashed
upon it, bent on its destruction.

Only a few cells and hidden shrines of the Confederation managed to survive, and the power of
the Ecclesiarchy over the minds of Humanity, for better or worse, was made unassailable.

By the end of the 33rd Millennium every Imperial world was furnished with its own cathedral and
the co`ers of the Ecclesiarchy were ^lled with the o`erings and tithes from the teeming billions
of the God-Emperor's faithful.
This wealth was squandered by building additional, ever larger and more lavish churches and
cathedrals and to fund Wars of Faith intended not to save the souls of Humanity but to secure
the Ecclesiarchy's political power and wealth.

The Age of Apostasy in the 36th Millennium was one of the most destabilising events in Imperial
history after the Horus Heresy, beginning during the long struggle between the Ecclesiarchy and
the Administratum for power over the Imperium.

High Lord Goge Vandire, the 361st Master of the Administratum, was a power-hungry tyrant who
eventually gained direct control over the Ecclesiarchy as well as the Administratum by usurping
the position of the ecclesiarch. This made him the most powerful individual in the Imperium, and
allowed him to place his own will above even that of the Emperor.

His time in power became known as the Reign of Blood, consisting of massive purges of the
Ecclesiarchy, and the killings and assassinations of countless perceived Traitors and
conspirators. This period was eventually ended by the reforming Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor's
reborn Confederation of Light, a sect of the Imperial Cult that sought to end Goge Vandire's
corruption of Imperial theology.

The Apostasy ultimately resulted in a major reformation of the Ecclesiarchy, the creation of the
Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus to police those enemies of the Imperium who lay within its own
structures and the founding of the Adepta Sororitas to serve as both the Ecclesiarchy's new
military forces and the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus.

The new theology of the Eccleisarchy, now informed by the beliefs and practices of the
Confederation of Light, turned away from the accumulation of wealth and power by the church
as the ultimate sign of the Emperor's favour. Instead, Thor emphasized the spiritual health of the
church's believers, and tenets of compassion and self-sacri^ce.

The Adeptus Ministorum remained immensely powerful as a political institution in the Imperium
after the end of the Age of Apostasy, but it no longer dominated the Imperium's leadership in
quite the same way, its ecclesiarch serving as just one more voice and in[uence upon the
Senatorum Imperialis.
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Cult of the Emperor

A devotional stained glass window of one of the Ecclesiarchy's chapels, depicting the God-Emperor on the Golden Throne

The Cult Imperialis is one of the few common factors that link the disparate worlds of the
Imperium together. No matter what conditions prevail upon a world within the Imperium, the
Imperial Cult will be found there. The ways in which the Emperor is worshipped are
multitudinous. To some He is revered as a distant patriarchal and Human ^gure. Others identify
Him with some aspect of nature or, like the primitive Epheisians of Dwimlicht, regard Him as a
star-god, for His agents only visit occasionally and they descend from the heavens when they
do so.

But all the creeds of the cult agree upon this one thing: there is only one Emperor. To worship a
pantheon of gods and put other gods alongside Him is heresy. However, there have been many
individuals over the millennia who have been seen as His Saints, people visibly touched by the
Emperor, and they are venerated all over the Imperium. There are Saints for every aspect of life
and there is a thriving trade in their relics on many worlds.

The worship of the Emperor is, in the main, highly organised. Cathedral complexes can be found
in the capitals of all worlds of any meaningful populations. On the densely populated, teeming
Hive Worlds, these can occupy entire spires of a hive city. The graceful structure of the Emperor
Triumphant, constructed after the Second War for Armageddon at Hive Primus on Armageddon,
climbs delicately skyward, its main tower nearly a full kilometre in height. The statue of the
Emperor at the top brushes the troposphere, looking benignly down upon the seething, polluted
world below. Most towns will have a church or temple to the Emperor, and even the crudest
village of the most primitive tribesmen will sport a sacred cave or grove dedicated to His name.

Of course, in some places, the worship of the Emperor supersedes all other aspects of life --
these are the Shrine Worlds of the Imperium, where perhaps one of the great Saints, or even, in
the distant past, the Emperor Himself, performed a great deed. These planets can be single, vast
religious complexes, or huge Cemetery Worlds such as Granithor, where the wealthy spend vast
fortunes bringing the dead scions of their families for burial, usually those who have perished in
the service of the Emperor. Then there are the Cardinal Worlds, which attract millions of pilgrims
and are the strongholds of the cult. These planets are directly governed by the Ecclesiarchy and
are the seats of functionaries high in the Ministorum, responsible for the spiritual health of vast
areas of Imperial space.

The Ecclesiarchy maintains and promotes the cult galaxy-wide and, where possible, tries to
sanction the worship of the Emperor no matter how bizarre it may seem. Very few practices are
proscribed, and even such abominations as Human sacri^ce to the Emperor are useful to the
Imperium, for it is easy to convince a newly encountered culture that approves of such custom
to give up its psykers to the Black Ships.
One of the Ecclesiarchy's tasks is to record this multiplicity of tradition with which the Emperor is
honoured. In that way, two Preachers from opposite sides of the galaxy will know, no matter
what their title or manner of expressing their devotion might be, that neither is a Heretic. The
Ecclesiarchy sends out mission [eets for precisely this purpose, and its [otillas of blessed
voidcraft slowly circle a particular part of the galaxy, recording new variants of the cult,
correcting serious heresies and proselytizing to newly discovered populations of Humans.

To all, the Emperor is a living god. He may be tens of thousands of light years away, but that He
exists, the inhabitants of the Imperium know, so faith is an easy thing. Some amongst the
Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition may argue that men should be more ardent in their devotion to Him,
but though some may be lax in their adulation and may blaspheme or heretically curse the
Master of Mankind for their lot, it is nevertheless rare to meet a man who would dare to deny the
Emperor's divinity.

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A Life of Worship
A devout member of the faithful of the Imperial Creed o`ers his prayer to the God-Emperor at His holy shrine.

The Emperor has a profound e`ect on the lives of the people He protects. To most, He is
everywhere and everything. Part of every citizen's life is to honour the Emperor, often on a daily
basis, for the protection and guidance that He provides. How they honour Him, however, will of
course vary depending on where they live and just how they choose to view the Emperor.

For example, on the world of Acreage, the priests of the High King teach that the Emperor is the
"King of the Sky"; sky-mill workers must keep their eyes averted from the heavens when they
work high above the ground, lest they anger Him with their impudence. Villages often make
"candle-balloons" in which to o`er their prayers.

On the Mining World of Luggnum, the pit-shafts are so dangerous that all miners undertake
hour-long blessings by the station abbot before they descend. Miners that have refused or
avoided such blessings are scorned (or even killed) by their co-workers, lest they bring ill-luck to
all, proving that perhaps the blessing does in fact protect from harm. Then there are worlds like
Dwimlicht, a Feral World far from the civilized core of the sector, where primitive locals see the
Emperor as a mighty star-god and shave their heads so that at night He might look into their
minds with His million eyes and see that they are faithful.
Whatever the world's particular teachings, almost universally, citizens pray before work, before
meals and before downtime. They thank the Emperor for what they have and pray to Him for
what they desire. As most citizens of the Imperium are poorly educated, often knowing only
what they need to do their jobs, prayer and the teachings of the Ministorum are all they know of
the galaxy or world beyond their homes.

They often believe wholeheartedly that if they do not pray to the Emperor and follow the
instructions of His clerics, they risk their very souls (a belief unfortunately justi^ed on many
worlds). Over time, citizens become entwined in the rituals of worship, so that daily prayers to
the Emperor are as natural to them as breathing. For most, this is as far as they come in their
religious observance, convinced of their faith, living and dying without ever questioning the
Ministorum or the god it serves.

Of course, there are those who stray from the path. Paying no more than lip service to the
Imperial Creed, these people forget their faith (if indeed they ever had it) and instead choose to
see the Emperor as a distant overlord, ruling an empire that He will never see from a state of
neither death nor life. Such folk choose to live by their own set of morals and ethics, though
usually they have little of either. On many advanced worlds these kinds of people thrive. Where
the rise of technology has overshadowed spirituality and wonder, so too does it undermine the
belief in a power greater than Mankind.

Such places can be breeding grounds for the faithless or for those that would scorn the power
of the Emperor for more tangible and immediate rewards. For many citizens, however, the truth
is, as always, somewhere between fevered worship and the brink of heresy. Most citizens pray at
their local shrine once a ten-cycle, and invoke the Emperor's name to protect them from evil;
but beyond this they go about their daily lives like everybody else.

The Afterlife

The oAcial position of the Ecclesiarchy on the spirits of the deceased is that the Emperor judges
all faithful Humans after death and, if they are worthy, grants them a place in His celestial army.

Di`ering interpretations of the Imperial Creed o`er a wide variety of explanations for what
happens to those souls deemed unworthy of joining the God-Emperor's ranks, but who are not
so heretical as to be damned out of hand.

Some versions say they are reborn to try again, others, that they must wander the afterlife for a
time, braving the dangers of the Warp unshielded as penance for a life ill spent until their actions
have redeemed them, proving them worthy of the God-Emperor's service. There are also many
tales of legendary servants of the Emperor returning from the Immaterium to the world of the
living when the people of the Imperium once again need them.

Some more rationalist versions of the Creed refuse to acknowledge the sentience of such
entities, referring to them in technical terms such as "post-life Warp signatures" and "the
aetheric charge contained by a residual personality."

Regardless of the ^ne points of doctrine, the Ecclesiarchy does acknowledge the existence of
spirits of the dead and of the rare Living Saints.

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Imperial Creed

The tenets of the Imperial Cult, known as the Imperial Creed, are actually highly [exible and are
tailored by the Adeptus Ministorum's Missionaries to ^t the native culture, existing religion, and
cultural practices of whatever world it exists upon.

As such, Imperial Cult practices adhered to on one world within the Imperium may be held as
abhorrent on another. The Adeptus Ministorum tolerates this vast range of practices and beliefs
as it would be impossible to maintain the faith by a rigid adherence to a standardised orthodoxy
across the more than one million worlds that comprise the Imperium of Man.

However, the Ecclesiarchy does enforce several basic tenets of the Imperial Creed, deviation
from which is considered heresy. These tenets include the following beliefs:

That the God-Emperor of Mankind once walked among men in their physical form and that
He is and always has been the one, true god of Humanity.
That the God-Emperor of Mankind is the one true god of Mankind, regardless of the previous
beliefs held by any man or woman.
It is the duty of the faithful to purge the Heretic, beware the psyker and mutant, and abhor
the alien.
Every Human being has a place within the God-Emperor's divine order.
It is the duty of the faithful to unquestionably obey the authority of the Imperial government
and their superiors, who speak in the divine Emperor's name.
Another recurring theme of the Imperial faith is the notion of the "End Times," or "Time of
Ending," which gained particular momentum in the Imperial Cult towards the end of the 41st
Millennium.

Often tied to the notion of the End Times is the belief that the Emperor will rise from the Golden
Throne and complete the work that He began ten thousand Terran years ago, and deliver the
faithful from all the evils of the galaxy.

While most view the End Times as a time of deliverance and spiritual salvation, it is also believed
by many within the Ecclesiarchy that the God-Emperor will sit in judgement of all Mankind, and
those who lack faith in Him will be damned for all eternity.

Aside from these central tenets of the Imperial Creed, there exists a great body of both
sanctioned and unsanctioned additional dogma which varies from sector to sector and world to
world and is the subject of constant debate within the Ministorum's hierarchy.

The subject and nature of the afterlife is one such regularly debated topic, with many teachings
mentioning the form of an afterlife in which the faithful take their place beside the Emperor of
Mankind for eternity.
However, other elements of the Holy Synod maintain a di`erent version of the afterlife, and the
nature of the belief in an afterlife varies greatly depending on the culture and technological
sophistication of a given Imperial planet.

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Sources

Codex Imperialis, pp. 32-38

Codex: Sisters of Battle (2nd Edition)
Dark Heresy: Core Rulebook (RPG), pg. 263
Dark Heresy: Blood of Martyrs (RPG), pp. 18-19
Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods (RPG), pg. 198
Dark Heresy: Purge the Unclean (RPG), pg. 76
Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, pg. 214
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1st Edition), pg. 268
Horus Heresy Novel Series

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