Frateris Templar



The Frateris Templar served as the military order of the Adeptus MInistorum (Ecclesiarchy) for several centuries until it was disbanded in the 36th Millennium following the Reign of Blood. It was subsequently replaced as the Ecclesiarchy's military forces by the Militant Orders of the Adepta Sororitas, better known as the Sisters of Battle.

Founding
The Frateris Templar were founded soon after the Ecclesiarchy moved its headquarters away from Terra and to the planet Ophelia VII in order to escape the political domination of the Imperium's secular Administratum. With the previous restraints removed, the Ecclesiarchy began to grow in power, forming its own interstellar fleet and armies, which became known as the Frateris Templar. The Ecclesiarchy's forces included many commercial and military starships among their numbers, and dozens of Templar armies, each possessing the strength of an Imperial Guard Regiment. The Frateris Templar was an all-male military order and operated effectively as the private army of the Ecclesiarchy. At times it was used to crush revolts against the Ecclesiarchy's power and its religious domination of the Imperium.

The Age of Apostasy
Three hundred years after the Frateris Templars' founding in the 36th Millennium, the Ecclesiarchy moved its central operations back to Terra after the insane High Lord Goge Vandire seized the Ecclesiarchy as his own, becoming master of both the Administratum and the Adeptus Ministorum simultaneously. When a pious priest of the Imperial Cult known as Sebastian Thor led the Confederation of Light in revolt against Vandire's tyranny, Vandire sent Frateris Templar to destroy him and the confederation, along with every living creature on the planet. However en-route to the planet the Templar fleet was engulfed in a Warp storm and destroyed, the storm later came to be known as the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath. After Vandire's defeat and the end of his Reign of Blood, the Frateris Templar was fully disbanded by the new Ecclesiarch, Sebastian Thor, and the Adeptus Ministorum was barred from ever holding any men under arms. As such, the Templars' role as the military defenders of the Ecclesiarchy was taken over by the Militant Orders of the Adepta Sororitas, who also began to serve as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus, the branch of the Imperial Inquisition charged with policing the Ecclesiarchy, as well as the rest of the Imperium, for heresy and treason.