The Emperor was once worshiped as a god by cults throughout the Imperium. Who were these cults lead by and where did they come form?
Via our friends at Lexicanum
The Ecclesiarchy (officially the Adeptus Ministorum) is the official state church of the Imperium. It maintains and spreads the Imperial Cult throughout the Imperium. Although the interpretation of particular Imperial Cult dogmas varies through the Imperium, any serious deviance from its strictures is considered heresy and dealt with extreme severity. The Ecclesiarchy is based on Terra, its urban palace covering nearly all of the southernmost continent.
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. This culminated in the worship of the Emperor as a god by the Word Bearers, resulting in the authoring of the Lectitio Divinitatus by Lorgar. Despite the Emperor’s ban on worship, the cults continued on in secret by such figures as Euphrati Keeler. 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 spread their forms of worship to other planets.
The strongest of all of them was the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. This cult had the advantages that it was based on Terra, and that its leader had been a successful and respected officer of the Imperial Guard who had fought at the Battle of Terra, defending the Imperial Palace.
This leader had re-named himself as Fatidicus and had begun to preach his teachings to anyone who would listen. This faith spread among the members of the Imperial Guard and Navy, but also to lowly scribes and minor adepts of the Adeptus Terra. The faith was spread by these individuals to other planets. When Fatidicus died at the age of 120, the Temple had more than a billion followers on Terra and untold numbers of the faithful throughout the Segmentum Solar.
In the wake of the chaos and anarchy of the Horus Heresy, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor provided a message of reunification through a common faith. Cults who rejected being absorbed, or who couldn’t be absorbed, saw themselves being persecuted by fanatical mobs. Officially, the Temple rejected this violence performed in its name.
This development culminated in M32 as almost two-thirds of the Imperium followed the teachings of the Temple, the exceptions being the Space Marines and the Adeptus Mechanicus, who had their own form of worship. The Temple’s importance, influence, and power rapidly outmatched any other Imperial cult.
