Adeptus Ministorum(Part – 1)
Overview
The Ecclesiarchy (officially the Adeptus Ministorum) is the closest thing to an official state church that the Imperium has. It maintains and spreads the Imperial Creed throughout the Imperium's network of worlds. Its duty is to promote the veneration of the Emperor of Mankind as the greatest representation of Humanity and maintain the collective emulation of the example He set before His placing on the Golden Throne.
History
During the Great Crusade, many different cults appeared throughout the Imperium worshiping the Emperor as a god, each with their own subtle variations and differences. These forms of worship appeared first in those primitive planets that had strongly regressed during the Age of Strife. The numbers of these cults multiplied immensely with the Emperor's ultimate sacrifice to mankind and subsequent incarceration upon the Golden Throne. Most of these cults would gradually fade away, while others prospered, eventually absorbing the weaker ones. The more successful ones attempted to spread their forms of worship to other planets.
The Emperor became an object of general religious veneration across the Imperium following the Heresy and his internment within the Golden Throne of Terra. Over the decades after that conflict, many individual Imperial cults sprang up throughout the Imperium, with their central theme being the redemption of humanity through the Emperor's self-sacrifice. After a few hundred years, a single cult known as the Ecclesiarchy was formed from the unification 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 wake of the chaos and anarchy of the Heresy, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor provided a message of hope and reunification 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. Officially, the Temple rejected this violence performed in its name.
A few centuries later Ecclesiarch Veneris II received a seat amongst the High Lords of Terra, and after 300 years, this seat was made permanent. The political power of the Ecclesiarchy continued to grow, increasing its hold over the minds and beliefs of the Imperial citizenry. Those who wouldn't follow its teachings were declared unbelievers and heretics, ostracized, and on occasion even executed. The vast territories of the Imperium were organized into dioceses led by the Ecclesiarchy's Cardinals. These powerful religious and political figures 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.
At first Lorgar patronized them, but then came a new player the Confederation of Light. Based upon the planet Dimmamar, this penitent faith's ideal of poverty and humble living clearly contradicted the teachings of the Ecclesiarchy, whose view was that the sacrifices of wealth and money to the Adeptus Ministorum in taxes, tithes and other gifts were necessary to enhance the citizens of the Imperium's access to salvation and ensure that the Emperor's light reached every corner of the galaxy through his Missions.
However, at the same time, another major event occurred. Exact records are scarce, and as such, Imperial scholars are not completely sure as to when it first appeared, but it has been confirmed to exist. On the outskirts of the Imperium, the Eldar Harlequin appeared. The Harlequins, or Rillietann, are a unique subset of the Eldar race, who split their time between being talented battlefield fighters and theatrical performers. Not only did the Harlequin aid in the cleansing of the forces of Chaos, a troupe of them, including a Solitaire, preformed the greatest of their works for a human populace. The performance, simply called The Dance, retold the Fall of the Eldar. It is said that it was so awe-inspiring that every single member of the audience wept in both its beauty and sadness. Many still speculate why the Harlequin chose to do this.
The results, however, became clear. The retelling of the Fall of the Eldar, reignited many of the beliefs from the original Imperial Truth. The Imperial Truth, as taught by the Emperor, had claimed all of the other intelligent alien races, such as the Eldar, had already tried and failed to maintain galaxy-spanning civilizations. Yet, with this insight into the Eldar's actual fall and the reasons behind it, many realized the stunning similarities between the Fall and the Heresy. The Eldar had fallen due to a gradual descent into cruelty, excess, and hedonism. In many ways, this is what occurred when the Primarchs and the Traitor Legions fell to Chaos. The Eldar had progressed to a point that only corruption within themselves brought about their empire's collapse, the birth of Slaanesh and the Dark Eldar. The Great Crusade had been dismantled, the Emperor had suffered grievous wounds, and half of the Space Marine Legions had fallen to Chaos from flaws within. This sudden revelation had pointed to a lack of mastery of oneself. Lack of discipline lead to weakness, weakness clouded one's judgment and with that came only corruption.
Word quickly spread of this belief. Where's the Temple of the Savior Emperor has the advantage of being based on the cradle of Humanity, the emerging movement that came to be known as the Confederation of Enlightenment, was rooted in the in many of the same beliefs espoused by the Emperor Himself and offered, in many ways, a simple but the almost tangible solution to avoid falling to Chaos. While the Temple provided a uniting force for those who were left reeling after the terrible events of the Heresy, it at the same time destroyed any other cults which would or could not match their beliefs to those of the Temple, the Confederation converted the majority of its skeptics through logic, citation of history and conviction. If the conversion failed, the Confederation labeled the unbelievers as weak It did not hurt that the Harlequin started to appear more frequently upon Imperial worlds to retell the history of the Eldar, further adding credence to the Confederation's cause. This schism threatened to tear the Imperium apart as those who sided with the Temple declared the Confederation heretical and ungrateful of the God-Emperor's sacrifice, while the believers of the Confederation view the Temple as zealots who saw only what they wanted and ignored what the Emperor attempted to teach humanity.
Ecclesiarchy turned to violence, supported in this effort by the unanimous vote of the Senate of the High Lords of Terra, who declared the onset of the first War of Faith, largely to ensure that Imperial stability was not damaged by the emergence of religious plurality. The entire Confederation was declared heretical and the forces of the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy, and thousands of fanatical zealots from the Frateris Militia were unleashed upon it, bent on its destruction.
Emperor soulbonded with Magnus contacted Lorgar to stop the purge, he ordered him to act and save Confederation, Emperor argued that the coffers of the Ecclesiarchy were filled with the offerings and tithes from the teeming billions of his faithful but This wealth is squandered in building more and more large and lavish churches and cathedrals and to fund the Wars of Faith intended not to save the souls of humanity but to secure the Ecclesiarchy's political power and wealth. To him This can not stand, so Lorgar informed the High Lords of Terra Emperor's order, and The High Lords publicly sided with the Confederation according to Emperor's will.