The Ecclesiarchy Sects of the Prosperitas Sector

The Priesthood

The Priesthood of the Prosperitas Sector has always been fragmented; central rule from the, now largely former, Shrine World of Nivalis was weak and many sects and planetary priesthoods were used to governing themselves. Grulge's arrival in the Prosperitas Sector marked a change in this as religious clamp-downs were initiated by the more tyrannical Cardinal as he sought to consolidate his power over them. He brought unity, many agreed, but his restrictions on religious freedoms were a stranglehold. It was dangerous for a long time for divergent sects to practice their beliefs openly; in hindsight, this grew the seeds of the proscribed beliefs of the Temple.

In some ways this has ensured that those loyal Priests and Sects that survived the Temple Uprising are the most canny and strong-willed examples of their kind.

The War for the Soul of Prosperitas

It is an ugly and ill-kept secret that a majority of Priests across the Sector swore loyalty to the Temple of the Saviour Emperor during Grulge's brief but divisive rule. Opinion is divided on how precisely to deal with those who committed the crime of following the Heresiarch's beliefs - especially those who have now recanted their views and pledge to loyally follow the Ecclesiarchy. While the Ordo Hereticus purged Templars from posts in the great Imperial institutions, the Temple briefly held considerable power on many of the besieged worlds of Subsector Secundus where its Fidelis Templar were - and are often still - the first line of defence alongside their PDF forces. Many worlds accepted the tyranny of the Apostate Cardinal in exchange for his protection and were hesitant to demonstrate their duties to the Ecclesiarchy by acting against him; opinion is divided on what penalties should be levied for this collaboration. If all those who cooperated with Grulge were purged, some murmur, there would be precious little Ecclesiarchy left in the sector.

The Quadripartite Schism

No longer unified against the Temple of the Saviour Emperor or under the ruthless heel of a Cardinal of the Faith forcing it to unite, the Ecclesiastical factions within the Prosperitas Sector’s Priesthood following a disastrous summit between the various religious groups on begin to align behind three powerful factions of the Faith with many other minor sects drawing enough to support to deny any of the three total dominance should a Sector Synod be formed;

Nongentist Omnicult

Priest who come from both the Imperial Cult and the Cult of Mars and seek to unify both faiths, Nongentists follow the teachings of Saint Nongentae of Ferraeus (see later) who straddled the two faiths and was canonised for her loyalty to the God-Emperor and part in the construction of the Great Cathedrals of Nivalis. A fusion of both Cults, the Nongentists are an anomaly - they are favoured greatly by the Loyalist Priesthood because their technical skills are of great aid given the traditional friction with the machine cult, but their loyalties to Mars and obsessions with bionic modification (each member of the sect strives to be in perfect balance a hybrid of exactly 50% organic/machine) and their somewhat deviant fusion of Mechanicus designs and Ecclesiastical religious art do upset more traditionalist priests of both cults.

To make matters more complicated the Omnicult has been known to educate those of the Imperial Faith in the mysteries of technology, inducting them into the Machine Cult in contradiction of the oaths of Tech-Priests to Mars and Priests of the Imperial Cult to the Ecclesiarchy. This strange fusion sect, who have appeared on many worlds since the breaking of loyalties with Cardinal Grulge, originates from Ferraeus and might well have been stamped out by other Priests there due to their unacceptably emotive faith compared to the machine-like ordered society promoted by the Machine Cult, singing loud hymns as they work. But their fanatical efficiency compensates for whatever upset their deviation from the norm occurs.

The Omnicult has long grown its power despite opposition from within both the Machine Cult and the Imperial Cult. Its members persecuted by the religious enforcers of the Ordo Malagra and those of the Imperial Cult alike, but with the upheaval from the annexation of Castellum the Nongentists have found purchase amongst many displaced Tech-Priests adapting to the new order among the Sector Mechanicus.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Omnicult has also found newly-fertile ground on Merewald, where its Omnissian-Emperor fusion-rites have found receptive ears amongst both Serfs and Nobility after the technophobic Followers of Saint Ludlam lost the faith of the population during the Silence. The bionic modifications adopted by the Omnicult’s followers in their pursuit of a perfect balance of machine and humanity might be no more disturbing than those of the Machine-Cult proper - but their Macro-Temples, raised as edifices of the Emperor-Omnissiah with their tableaux vivant filled with electively servitorised devotees posed in religious scenes are unsettling to many.

The Nongentists have their heaviest presence amongst the worlds outside of Subsector Primus, where the Omnicult’s Tech-Wrights are valued greatly for maintaining critical machinery. Their Priests’ willingness to encourage adoption of bionics to weather the extreme conditions on many worlds on the fringe make a deal of sense to allow humans to adapt to unexpected environments their bodies were not made for, and engender a groundswell of support on the frontiers.

The Voluntas Concedists

find their support amongst the Nobility of the Prosperitas Sector. Often considered the worst excesses of the union of the Imperial Faith and the Imperial State, the Concedists’ doctrine strongly reinforces amongst their flocks the “divine right” of the bloodlines of the Imperial Nobility. Their opponents call them cynical and corrupt, saying that Concedist Priests are the tame ‘pets’ of the Nobility, seeking only to benefit from wealth and indulgences offered by their noble patrons and putting their political ambitions before their duties to the Creed. Concedists would argue that their close bonds with the Imperial Nobility are enshrine in the core hierarchical values of the Imperial faith; and that the Ministorum’s role is consequently to minister to the purity of the Nobility, that their moral virtue in leadership will be in turn conferred on the souls under their stewardship.

It cannot be denied that the Concedists are the most wealthy of the preeminent sects of the Prosperitas Sector, but they are also the least religiously philosophical one at the same time and have little purchase amongst the myriad of Priests found on the colony-worlds of the Sector - many of whom found themselves assigned as missionaries for their lack of support of the state-aligned hierarchy of the Eccliesarchy proper.

Although the sect finds its greatest support in Subsector Primus, it often finds it easier to found temples in the outlying colonies of the Prosperitas Sector thanks to its relative wealth and welcomeness amongst the nobility. These displays of wealth and power have not helped it win over its enemies within the Priesthood, reminding many of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor’s priorities and trappings even as it treads on their toes; and its greatest weakness is how vehemently it is disliked by the Adepta Sororitas, especially the Order of His Sanguine tears.

The Hierocratic Orthodoxy

Based on the Ecclesiastic Enclave on Gaudium the Orthodoxy represents what could be called closest to what a traveller from outside of the Prosperitas Sector would consider the 'typical' Ecclesiarchy. Though their number tend to be ultra-orthodox by the standards of their galactic peers due to their need to demonstrate their loyalty to doctrine and canon in the wake of how so thoroughly compromised their number were by the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. Owing to how freely the faith has been allowed to splinter on so many worlds both before and after the fall of the Temple the Orthodoxy lacks a great deal of numbers and while it can usually rely on the distant support of the Ecclesiarch on Terra it struggles amongst the most major factions of the Cult Prosperitas for both significant numbers of Priests and followers. It might naturally find a home in the more traditionally Imperial Worlds of Subsector Primus but the noble-sponsored Voluntas Concedists have edged them out of many spaces where once-grand temples have been rebuild with the coin of the Great Houses Concedist Priests have tended to, via clear corruption, secure the leadership within them, with the lack of a central Ecclesiastic Authority to enforce any meaningful religious beaurocracy.

Though the Orthodoxy lack in numbers and wealth though they can rely on the support of traditional arms of the Faith and the Imperium not obedient to the influence of the Nobility. In the most part the Sisters Militant of the Order of His Sanguine Tears and Other Adepta Sororitas, as well as the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition, favour the pre-eminence of this section of the Priesthood and its number have been able to secure further supplies and support from Tera. It remains to be seen, however, how much this will count for, the Battle Sister's role in the rise of the Temple has not earned them much favour with the wider Adepta Sororita and Tera has little direct influence over the frontier space of Prosperitas.

The Myriad Sects

Not a unified faction in and of themselves, the myriad of minor sects of the Prosperitas Sector represent an important factor in sector religious politics. The Prosperitas Sector has attracted a great number of divergent religious beliefs in the God-Emperor, ones that would face persecution in more established regions of the Imperium. While the Nongentist Omnicult has been the most successful of these, it is not to say others lack followers; many simply aren’t focused on securing power like the other factions of the ecclesiarchy.

The Gearwrights

Main Article: The Gearwrights

Uncomfortably not yet officially recognised by the Sector Ecclesiarchy, the Gearwrights are neverthless an increasingly popular Sect found across the Sector since their refugee origins fleeing their home planet of Olethros Secunda. They devote their worship to their 'Saint' Callum Gearwright, who they claim to have been miraculously returned to life by the will of the God-Emperor. Relentlessly persecuted during the Temple Uprising, the Gearwrights are now to be found across the Sector, and have been particularly active in the restoration of Nivalis after its bloody civil conflict drew to a close in 597.M41.

The Qawm'Aljibal

Main Article: History of Nivalis

On the ancient shrine-world of Nivalis, the native Ruwwad population have practiced worship of a figure they associated with the God-Emperor for generations before the coming of the Prosperitas Crusade. The ancient shrines of Nivalis are home to a sect which honours the twin disciplines of hunting and healing, finding both to be sacred practices. It has been declared orthodox by the Sector Ecclesiarchy, despite its unusual roots.

The Raivan Sun-Cult

Main Article: Raivan Culture

The religious practices the Raivan worship of the God Emperor evolved separate to the challenges that have faced the Imperial Cult through its long and tumultuous history. Unchanged for millennia, the Raivan religion is a rare example of elements of the 'original' Imperial faith, though it has evolved entirely along its own lines. Solar worship is central to the aspect of the Imperial Cult found on Shadowglow. The world sees light one standard Terran daily cycle once every ten years, and a huge amount of focus is placed onto that day.

The Midsummer Harvest Cult

The planet of Midsummer is home to its own unique cult, tied to the agrarian culture of the Imperial settlers there. The Cult Worships the Emperor as the 'Emperor-in-Terra' or sometimes as the "Wickerman" - to them the Emperor is a embodied in the natural world and is generally worshiped through various seasonal rituals. It is known to the Ecclesiarchy that the Harvest Cult is a Death Cult as well, using ritualistic sacrifice of consenting inhabitants of the world in an annual festival that according to local mythos 'renews' the planet with their sacrifice. This practice has been investigated and approved by the Ordo Hereticus and the Ecclesiarchy, the mass death kept clean by the use of local natural toxins to end the lives of the participants - it's not widely known to outsiders however, and occasional visiting participants in the festival are caught off-guard by the practice.

The Tomb-Priests of Amenophis IV

Located exclusively on Amenophis IV the Tomb-Priests are the orthodox priests of Amenophis. All across the planet, Tomb-Priests carry out the usual functions of the Ecclesiarchy: leading prayer to the God-Emperor, blessing the weapons of the faithful, exhorting diligent obedience to the Imperial state, and meting out religious justice. Amenophis’ local faith is orthodox, and emphasises four things: the conflation of the Emperor with the Sun; the blessing of the River Aur, whose flooding renders Amenophis habitable and largely self-sufficient; the proper ritual preparation and burial of the dead, traditionally more elaborate and given greater prominence than on other worlds; and the performance of prayers according to a vast, planet-wide liturgical almanac.

The Tomb-Priests’ Great Library contains the liturgical calendar which details which omens mean which rites must be performed when. Every shrine and necropolis on the face of Amenophis, from the Hive Cathedrals down to single worn stelae in the desert, is issued its own Book of Hours listing its rites. New copies flow out regularly to update the liturgy, as the auspices are calculated, recalculated and cross-referenced. The least important shrines see one ritual a decade, while the greatest demand an exacting hourly prayer-cycle. Though divergent from the Imperial standard, the cult enjoys Ecclesiastic approval and the Tomb-Priests enjoy relative respect and cooperation the Ecclesiarchy - they are not found on other worlds, but where they have travelled abroad can be identified by an icon of the Sun Tattooed on their forehead.

The Redemption Prosperitas

The Redemption cannot truly be considered a part of the Sector Ecclesiarchy - barely tolerated by the Ecclesiarchy it has its roots in Segmentum Solar and was brought to the Prosperitas Sector by converts amongst the Imperial colony vessels that settled the sector. The Redemption is a dangerous sect, violent in its preaching of hate against various targets of its religious belief including any perceived 'deviants' Its initiates dehumanise themselves, wearing masks and hoods to hide their faces, an act they believe turns them into ‘weapons’ of the faith. Dressed in red robes the shade of blood and fire, Redemptionists believe that the only redemption from sin is death, and their rampages against perceived ‘sinners’ more often than not consume innocent lives. While the Ecclesiarchy admires virtues of fanaticism, xenophobia and hatred, the Redemption of the Prosperitas Sector is often uncontrollable. It shows little respect to the leadership of the Ecclesiarchy and the Imperium, and is just as likely to turn its acts of violence on loyal Imperials who it perceives as heretics for some imagined reason. To this end, the Cult is outlawed in the sector and suppressed by Ecclesiarchy and Adeptus Arbites alike.

The Missionarius Galactica in the Prosperitas Sector

Most of what you need to know about the Missionarius Galactica and its role can be found here.

It should come of no surprise that Imperial Missionaries play a large role in why the Sector's Ecclesiarchy is so fragmented, as such a young Sector, by Galactic Standards, it has been the influence of Imperial Missionaries that have shaped the myriad sects of the Prosperitas Sector, warped local beliefs to the God Emperor such as on Midsummer and Amenophis and will likely only continue to do so in the years that follow. It was via the Missionarius that the Heresiarch Grulge was able to gain power, having first arrived as a Cardinal of the Missionarius in Sector, and while the Ordo Hereticus have been watchful in ensuring no Missionaries with the Temple Tendency make it into the Sector, they cannot filter out every itinerant missionary with their own opinions on how the Emperor should be worshiped, and certainly cannot allow for the surprising number of missionaries who 'go native' in founding the myriad deviant sects of the Sector.

The Faith Militant in the Prosperitas Sector

The Prosperitas Sector's relationship with the militant members of the Imperial Faith has been a difficult one in recent times, aided by neither the Order of His Sanguine Tears or the actions of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor and the "Heresiarch" Cardinal Grulge that led their uprising in the Prosperitas Sector.

The Fidelis Militia of the Prosperitas Sector is vastly more inflated and trained then the irregular forces found in the wider galaxy that carry the same name, this is a legacy of the so-called "Fidelis Templar" the insurgent force raised by Heresiarch Grulge during the Temple's attempt to overthrow the religious order in the Prosperitas Sector. With the Temple defeated, the Crusade has been hesitant to immediately disband what remains of this fighting force following the purge of its most outwardly heretic leaders - and has largely employed Prelate Hadrian Grulge to coordinate the army of the faith under the watchful eye of the Ordo Hereticus and the pentient Sisters of the Order of His Sanguine Tears who have made it their duty to ensure that the mistakes made by their order in enabling Grulge and training this army forbidden by doctrinal law are undone. There are those who advocate for not taking the risk of allowing it to remain, but most Imperial Commanders have found the Fidelis Militia valuable where penal units have been exhausted and the faithful rabble can be reliably launched as a horde attack against enemy positions.

Death Cults in the Prosperitas Sector are not uncommon, but the majority are the more traditional cults of personal sacrifice (such as the Harvest Cult) or mortuary cults. The ritualistic orders of Assassins that most embody the term, however, have their footholds in the Sector, with a myriad of small local cults being found in the service to various individuals, none of these are large enough to be of note, but they are present in the shadows, training deadly assassins of the faith employed by the Ordos of the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy alike - a problematic thing historically as the Temple made extensive use of assassins to eliminate any charismatic opponents to its rise, and as such these Cults have played a major part in the lack of leadership figures.

Notable Saints of the Prosperitas Sector

Saints and Sainthood is an important concept within the Imperial Faith - within the Prosperitas Sector there are a handful of local saints that are worshipped in addition to more common ones;

Saint Khan-Hattilik – The figure of Khan-Hattilik is a mysterious one, unique to the history of Korimesta; the legends surrounding them are clear, their identity is not so much. The most common version of the tale of the Saint says that at the time the Imperium came to the planet, one of the Houses which refused to surrender to the Imperium dispatched the Asassin, Khan-Hattilik, to murder the head of the Imperial Delegation. Legends are that the head of the delegation, a Priest, found the Assassin in her bedchambers, and rather than fight them or cry out for her guards, spent many hours speaking with them. Whatever passed between them is unknown, but the next day the throats of each and every House which had opposed the Imperium, were found cut. To this day the role of the Assassin in unifiying Korimesta with the Imperium is honoured by a festival where identities are masked, in reverence to them.

Saint Nafisa – Saint Nafisa of the Order of His Sanguine Tears is a great champion of the Prosperitas Crusade, a Soror who led many successful incursions against Archenemy-held worlds and brought many worlds in Subsector Tertius into the Imperium. Nafisa was amongst those Imperials who discovered the Cadian passage that makes the Sector vital to Imperial supply lines in Cadia. Nafisa left the Sector via that passage with much of the Order of His Sanguine Tears. The Order would not return until the arrival of Cardinal-Emissarius Grulge, and Nafisa would never see her home again, killed in battle against Heretics in the Cadia Subsector. Her bones are preserved now in a Shrine on Nivalis. The Order of His Sanguine Tears believe in a prophecy that when the Sector needs her most, the Saint will arise again, and strike back at the Archenemy, and ascend to being a Living Saint.

Saint Ignace of the Officio Cochlea Lucidae – Saint Ignace is a unusual figure in the history of the Prosperitas Sector, in that they are noted for their devotion to the Administratum. A Scribe by training, Ignace famously matyred themselves shouldering the workload of the lost scribes and functionaries of the Administratum consumed by the Lash of the Eye in 328.M41. This might seem like a strange task to be granted Sainthood for, but through their actions many displaced refugees from Subsector Tenebris were safely and swiftly resettled and found aid and supplies to survive, and so they are the patron saint of many of the refugees of that lost sector.

Saint Leonidas of Persephon – The patron Saint of the Persephon System, Marshall Leonidas was one of the companions of Warmaster Jacinta Durovera. HHe is credited with fighting a bloody battle to rip the system from the hands of the Archenemy, and died upon the field of battle leading the final bloody liberation of Persephon IV. He is not entirely popular with the Sector Ecclesiarchy, who see his appointment a political recognition done as a political favour to Warmaster Durovera to try and buy her support by the Ecclesiarchy. Many of the shrines to Saint Leonidas have been desecrated by the Ork occupation of Persephon IV and he is considered highly sacred by Persephonian Regiments.

Saint Nongentae of Ferraeus – Perhaps one of the most controversial of the Saints of the Prosperitas Sector, Saint Nongentae was not born a follower of the Imperial cult. She was a Tech-Priest of Ferraeus, an initiate of the Collegia Architecton of the Machine Cult, but in life she became deeply involved with overseeing the construction of the Grand Temple of Nivalis. Her embrace of the Emperor-as-Omnissiah is somewhat controversial amongst some of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the decision to enshrine her remains on Nivalis is of considerable controversy with Ferraeus. In death, Nongentae is the Patron-Saint who guards the souls of those who the Ecclesiarchy believes risk their faith my joining the Machine Cult in the service of the Imperium – many believe her beatification is simultaneously a convenient legal fiction to guard those Imperials who join the Machine Cult to learn from it, and a spit in the Eye from the Ecclesiarchy to the Cult Mechanicus.

Saint Lucas of Letifer - A popular local saint from the hive of Mohr Holt on Letifer Secundus, called the "Dissolver of Demons", St Lucas represents conviction, selflessness, purity and absolute trust in faith. They are often depicted as a young masculine figure with dark hair in an undercut - they are always shown with blackened hands up to their mind-forearms, often wearing simple white robes. They were a non-binary or agendered masculine person, with him or they pronouns. The story of St Lucas tells that while helping the Planetary Defence Forces quell a rebellion in his home Hive, he struck down a vile cultist of the Enemy into a river of sacred acid. In an act of benevolence, he held down the cultist down in the corrosive pool, and exorcised the demon before its host perished, thereby his soul. His hands should have been left a me!ted disfiguration but instead they simply turned black. Miraculous events attributed to St Lucas resulted in a huge upswell in recruitment to the Letiferan Guard regiments in late 597.

The Non-Canonisation of Warmaster Durovera I

It is a subject of some controversy that Warmaster Durovera I was never recognised by the Ecclesiarchy as an Imperial Saint where many other Warmasters have historically been recognised by the Imperium for beatification, especially given the immense success she had in her campaign to retake the Prosperitas Sector.

Some rumours suggest this is because she was, in life, not the most reverent of members of the Imperial Creed, a woman who did what she wanted and had very little time for ceremony, or Priests, indeed it is rumoured that she either struck, or duelled and killed, the first Cardinal appointed to the Prosperitas Sector, when they raised her ire, a factor that did not make her popular at all with the Ecclesiarch. Some rumours belief that it is simply because the Ecclesiarchy did not want to give the legitimacy of relations to a Saint to her disappointing line of heirs who squandered much of what she won for her House.

For whatever reasons, she goes unrecognised, simply a Hero of the Imperium, rather than a Saint.

The Rise and Fall of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor

The Temple of the Saviour Emperor is a heretical sect of the Ecclesiarchy which rose to prominence in the Prosperitas Sector in the mid 590s.M41. Its local leader, self-styled "Archimandrite" Grulge, was executed in 597.M41. Since then, the remnants of the Temple have been thrown into chaos, and they are rapidly disappearing as a power in the Sector as they are hunted down and killed by members of the Ordo Hereticus and agents of the Ecclesiarchy.

When scholars refer to the Temple of the Saviour Emperor they usually do so in the past tense. For most of the Imperium the Temple is the name for the Ecclesiarchy before the Age of Apostasy, a period in M.36 where a bloody theocracy reigned over the Imperium. At the end of that era, the reformationist Saint Sebastian Thor introduced major reforms. These curtailed the power of the faith and reformed the "Temple" into the modern Ecclesiarchy.

The Temple cult as it appeared in the Prosperitas Sector is an example of a sect that opposed the reforms of Sebastian Thor and continued the legacy of the Temple in opposition to the Ecclesiarchy. While heretical in the eyes of the Ecclesiarchy and the Ordo Hereticus, Templars are still worshippers of the God-Emperor. Their primary disagreement with the Ecclesiarchy is doctrinal: they believe in the primacy of the Priesthood in temporal and political matters as well as spiritual ones. They believe that the traditional Imperial hierarchy is unfit to rule the Imperium in the Emperor's stead. They hold special contempt for the Ecclesiarchy hierarchy, the Adepta Sororitas and the Imperial Nobility. Priests who hint at such beliefs are sometimes rebuked by their fellows as following the "Temple Tendency", another name for the heretical cult.

The Prosperitas Sector is not the only location fragments of this sect have been found to survive. The Temple of the Saviour Emperor has lived on in a myriad of small splintered sects dedicated to preserving practices outlawed by the Thor Reforms. These secret sects maintain entire bloodlines of Priests, dating back from the era of the Reforms, who refuse to acknowledge Thor as having divine mandate from the God-Emperor and seek to undo the reforms and restore the Priesthood of the God Emperor to theocratic rule.

The recently subdued Templar uprising in the Prosperitas Sector is a rare - and failed - example of the Sect being emboldened to come out of hiding and openly attempt to transform the sector into a Theocracy.

The Temple Uprising

Given the numbers of Priests who have declared themselves to follow Temple teachings during the uprising, it is blisteringly unlikely that the Temple sect arrived for the first time with Cardinal Grulge in 584.M41. It is likely the Temple first arrived with the opening of the Prosperitas Sector in M.41. However, examples of early seeds of the Imperial faith that formed independent cults on Nivalis and amongst the Raivan population of Shadowglow prior to the arrival of Ecclesiarchy Missionaries make some wonder if the Temple had not found the region long before the Imperium's arrival.

The arrival of Cardinal Grulge with reinforcements to the Prosperitas Crusade and the potent force of Adepta Sororitas of the Order of His Sanguine Tears was a turning point in the history of the Prosperitas Ecclesiarchy. While the Sorors saw to the pacification and retaking of riot-wracked Nivalis, Grulge turned his sights to the Priesthood with fire and fury – bringing the various factions into line, forging a unity built on strict obedience to his command.

The Cardinal-Emissarius’ rule of the Ecclesiarchy was marked by a swing towards the authoritarian and militant tendencies of the early Ecclesiarchy. Adoption of the Lecticio Divinitatus, one of the earliest tomes of writing of the Cult Imperialis, was widely added to the creed taught in seminaries and temples across the Sector. This marked a tendency towards preaching pride and faith in the authority of the Ecclesiarchy, rather than the humility represented by the Post-Reformation Ecclesiarchy's teachings.

The formation of internal organisations, such as the Officio Negotiata Internam (or ONI), intended to ensure internal cohesion and loyalty to the Cardinal, furthered his control of the Prosperitas Ecclesiarchy. It was not until his Templar heresy was exposed to the Ecclesiarch on Terra that resistance to his rule began. Grulge was excommunicated in 594.M41 and mockingly titled the "Heresiarch" by his detractors. This ignited an ecclesiastical civil war across the Sector. Templar forces clashed with those loyal to the Ecclesiarchy on Agrial, Nivalis and other Shrine-Worlds, even while both forces fought against the encroaching forces of the Archenemy.

The Temple's power continued to wax through 595-597.M41, with rumours that the Archimandrite had manifested miraculous powers after recovering the Bones of Saint Nafisa. He was eventually captured on Nivalis and officially executed in 597.M41, throwing his forces into turmoil and in large part ending the Templar threat in the Sector. Since that date what is left of the Temple has been hunted down and likely faces extinction in the Prosperitas Sector in part thanks to it becoming emboldened to come into the open during the uprising.

Notable Figures of the Prosperitas Ecclesiarchy

Archdeacon Ingrid Dunkeld [missing since 594.M41] is head of the Ecclesiarchy on Lerwick and wife of Alice, the Planetary Governor. Known for being a friendly, bubbly personality, who sits neatly within the orthodox factions of the Ecclesiarchy, Ingrid is more charming then her wife, relying more on convincing others to her way of thinking than using threats. Since the Rising Flame uprising and Archenemy invasion in 594.M41, Ingrid Dunkeld has not been seen in public and is believed to have gone into hiding as-yet untraced by Imperial forces.

Prelate Hadrian Grulge is the widower of disgraced heretic Ignatius Grulge. Officially pardoned for his husband's crimes in 597.M41, he now acts as a Coordinating Chaplain for the Fidelis Militia