Female Commissars?
A Simple Question
Yes.
There is a cadet one in the Commissar Cain novel Cain's Last Stand.
I think GW use to make a miniature for one as well, centuries ago.
Not to mention Viktoria Balshin, Lady Commisar-General. She was a character in His Last Command by Dan Abnett.
I think the question would be ontopic so- Female Priests? Is there a mention of an Imperial Priestess in any official material? Or are Sororitas the only women in Ecclesiarchy?
IH there is an order of female missionaries, clerics, and priestesses that travel the void. Sisters of the Void.
Interesting, I never knew there was actually a miniature for female commissars. Now if only there were female space marines I'd be really impressed. (And no, Sisters of Battle are not the same things.)
Milova said:
Interesting, I never knew there was actually a miniature for female commissars. Now if only there were female space marines I'd be really impressed. (And no, Sisters of Battle are not the same things.)
Duh... If there were female space marines war would be obsolete. They'd figure out a better way, leaving testosterone driven megalomania to the cavemen.
In addition to what all the others have said, there's also a description of an Imperial Saint who apparently was a female missionary in the IH. The IoM has many flaws, but gender discrimination doesn't seem to be on of them.
Keyoz Devastrius said:
I think the question would be ontopic so- Female Priests? Is there a mention of an Imperial Priestess in any official material? Or are Sororitas the only women in Ecclesiarchy?
In the DH book it does mention one ArchDeacon Ludmilla although she is leader of the Redemptionst movement and probably only gained that title from that and not the Ecclesiarchy itself.
Female space marines are apparently impossible, due to the fact that the geneseed require male biology to work correctly.
Ignayus and Zarkhovian_Rhythm thank you both. I'm really curious are women in the ecclesiarchy (besides Sororitas) mentioned in any GW material like black library books, codexes (codeci?) etc. or are they "Dark Heresy specific".
Yes, there are female priests, but it is important to remember that Imperial orthodoxy accepts considerable local variation. On one world it might be prohibited for those cursed with blue eyes to be priests and another might have female only priests and the Ecclesiarchy would accept that as long as they were within the general bounds of orthodoxy (acknowledging the divinity of the Emperor, obeying Imperial authority, supressing mutants and witches and so forth).
St Sabbat, St Emelia, a large number of other canonised and beatified people, some of whom were declared living saints, others who weren't, like Euphrati Keeler- a Crusade-era remembrancer whose name seemed familiar when I spotted it in the Horus Heresy novels; turns out she'd been mentioned as an early imperial saint in an obscure old WD article. Since the Adepta Sororitas weren't an Imperial organisation until Goge Vandire's Reign of Blood (M36), it's probably safe to say that she wasn't a member.
It's also worth asking whether by Sororitas you mean the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, or whether you include the non-militant orders (the various orders famulous, dialogis, pronatus, and hospitaller) as well. The non-militant orders act in a similar niche as the various orders of nuns do nowadays (well, possibly not the Orders Famulous- they seem to be closer to the Bene Gesserit than anything else). Given the scope of the Imperium, and the parallels between the Ecclesiarchy and the Catholic Church (and I'd like to state for the record that no matter what tangent or slant I put on things, I have no wish to impugn anyone's faith, although I may or may not share it), I'd say it is possible that some worlds and branches of the Imperial Creed will accept women as ordained and/or lay preachers, if not better. Other worlds, and other sects, however, may have an even more... blinkered view than, say, the Jesuits, or the Dominicans, or the Shi'a
The Redemptionists, for example are a case in point- Archdeacon Ludmilla, as the founder of the sect, probably would not have gained her title because she led a particular imperial cult, but would have gained it on her own merit within the orthodox Imperial Creed and
then
written the Dictates and gathered her followers into the most reactionary sect in the entire Cult Imperialis. Indeed, the Redemption is so extreme as to have been banned on multiple worlds.
An interesting, mildly related tangential fact- if you trace the history of the Redemption back through the various GW publishings and beyond, to Brian Ansell's
Laserburn
, you'll find it was originally an Islamic sect (apparently). How we get from that to its' current incarnation and founder, I'm not sure (about the latter, at least, although given the length of time involved it isn't impossible). The really cool thing is- given the Emperor's age, it isn't impossible that he was Mohammed, or one of his tutors/advisors/friends. However, the idea that Islam itself survives that long, given the purge on religion during the end of Unification (especially the story in the recent
Tales of Heresy
anthology:
The Last Church
) is somewhat implausible.
Oh, and the plural of 'codex' is 'codices' (pronounced 'kod-iss-ees)
Alasseo said:
However, the idea that Islam itself survives that long, given the purge on religion during the end of Unification (especially the story in the recent Tales of Heresy anthology: The Last Church ) is somewhat implausible.
Many human worlds were outside the Imperium during the Age of Unification. Many still are. Calixus, for example, was only incorporated into the Imperium relatively recently. It's not inconceivable that a mutant version of Islam survived on one and it's tennants made their way into the local Imperial Cult and then spread. Most religions do tend to borrow or be influenced by contact with other religions and people. Balder (who is suspiciously Christ like for a Norse god) and Ragnarok, for example, appear to have become more prominent in Norse mythology (or were possibly invented) following Christian contact. For a more modern example there are is the resemblances between Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Aztec corn goddess Tonantzin.