Ecclesiarchy Priest - Clerical Organisation: The Ecclesiarchy is not officially part of the Adeptus Terra, but is organised as a wholly separate Imperial adepta. At its head is the leader of the Imperial Cult, the high priest known as the ecclesiarch, who, by tradition since the mid-32nd Millennium, is always one of the Imperium's ruling High Lords of Terra.Below him are the cardinals, of which there are several thousand, each of whom oversees the Ecclesiarchy's operations and properties in a diocese comprising a sector, sub-sector or even a single world of Imperial space.Below the cardinals are the priests known as pontifices, confessors, missionaries and preachers, in that order. The clerical orders of the Ecclesiarchy are open to men and women alike, though men seem to have an advantage in achieving high position in the church's hierarchy because many believe that as men, they are closer to the perfection of the God-Emperor, whose perfect embodied form was that of a Human male.The Adeptus Ministorum's own governing body is the Holy Synod, a conclave composed of the Ecclesiarchy's most powerful arch-cardinals and cardinals. The Ministorum divides the Imperium's territory across the galaxy into thousands of dioceses, each generally encompassing an entire Imperial world -- the exception being Terra, the heart of the Imperium, which possesses several dioceses because of its sheer population size and political importance.Some dioceses can encompass several worlds or even an entire sector in the case of the officials granted the extremely powerful rank of Cardinal-Astra. A diocese is further divided into parishes centred around a shrine or church. Each diocese is headed by a cardinal, while each parish is headed by an Imperial priest with the title of preacher.Ranking between these individuals are priests known as pontifices whose authority extends over several parishes to serve as administrative go-betweens in large dioceses between preachers and their ruling cardinal. Priests known as missionaries have no administrative duties within a single diocese but can be deployed to spread the faith of the Imperial Cult to newly rediscovered Human-settled worlds. They are always part of the Ecclesiarchy's missionary wing that is called the Missionarius Galaxia.Confessors are evangelical zealots who possess a rank within the Ecclesiarchy somewhere between preacher and cardinal. Their oratory skill can stir the emotions of entire worlds, leading them to confess personal heresies and mutations, and to betray their neighbours as psykers, Heretics, mutants or other deviants.They are free to wander within an entire diocese and preach amongst the population. They often work on Imperial colonies and are especially useful on worlds where faith is lacking and the people are rebellious against the Imperium. With special dispensation from the Ecclesiarchy, they may even gather armies of Frateris Militia or the Sisters of Battle and lead Wars of Faith against the enemies of the Imperium. Confessors often wear the Rosarius as both protection and a symbol of their rank.The Adeptus Ministorum also includes an administrative bureaucracy, headed by priests called arch-deacons, who control all secular business within the Ecclesiarchy. Arch-deacons are the administrative counterparts to cardinals, responsible for the temporal affairs of an entire diocese.The arch-deacon's subordinates, known as deacons, deal with the money entering and leaving a specific diocese or parish, regulate the construction of new shrines and temples and deal with the other secular requirements of running a galaxy-spanning religion.