Lectitio Divinitatus



The Lectitio Divinitatus (also Lectio Divinitatus) was a book written by the Primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers Space Marine Legion1 during the Great Crusade of the 31st Millennium, before his fall to Chaos. It postulated the worship of the Emperor of Mankind as a divine being.

The following of the Lectitio Divinitatus became an underground cult of the same name, believed to be the precursor of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor and the Imperial Cult, the basis of the modern Ecclesiarchy. During the Great Crusade, such cults were frowned upon and condemned by the Emperor and the Council of Terra, and most especially by the Adeptus Astartes and those serving them. The Emperor denied his divinity, but those who believed in the Emperor's godhood were of the opinion - as Titus Cassar once put it - that "only the truly divine deny their divinity". In the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, commanded by the Warmaster Horus himself, the cult was most prevalent. Horus took steps to try to extinguish the cult, as he perceived it as a threat to his own power, particularly after he turned to Chaos. The remembrancer Euphrati Keeler - who was attached to the 63rd - became a major figure in the early Lectitio Divinitatus cult, venerated as a prophet and living saint of the Emperor. As a result, she was the target of Horus' assassins at some point before she escaped from his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Even some Astartes - such as Nathaniel Garro, the Death Guard Loyalist who led the escape of the Eisenstein from the massacres in the Istvaan System - became part of the cult at one point.

At some point after the Emperor was interred in the Golden Throne, worshippers emerged from all across the Imperium, unifying the Imperial people until it became the official religion of the Imperium.