Imperial Cult

"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 official 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 an embodied divine 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 influence 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 scientific 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.

Type

Religious, Organised Religion