God's Right Seat

God's Right Seat (神の右席) was a secret magical organization within the Roman Catholic Church. Referred to as the true dark side of the Roman Catholic Church by Leivinia Birdway, they were a group composed of powerful magicians aligned with the four Archangels.

They were the primary antagonistic organization in the latter half of the original Toaru Majutsu no Index light novels, the God's Right Seat Arc, driving the story with their clash against Kamijou Touma and Academy City, and drawing a great shadow on other stories not directly affected by it. At the end of this clash, though only one of the members died, the organization no longer exists.

Principles
God's Right Seat's role was originally to advise the Pope on matters regarding the Church and keeping in the shadows, but later taking a much more central role of the Roman Catholic Church after the Pope relied on the "secret discussions" too often, easily overpowering and vetoing the decisions of the Pope, as what happened with Vento of the Front telling Pope Matthai Reese to formally sign a document that he would have normally established a few years from the present to declare Kamijou Touma as the enemy of the Church. Vento of the Front claims that though the Pope is chosen by the people through election, she is unique and irreplaceable, despite the fact that God's Right Seat could be changed and replaced ‘internally’ to keep it alive.

In their own way, the members of the God's Right Seat have their own beliefs, thoughts, and philosophies, believing themselves to be pious. For example, both Terra of the Left and Acqua of the Back consider themselves as pious Christians, but the former does not believe that non-Catholics are humans and would easily kill them for his own uses, a fact that angers Acqua of the Back.

La Persona Superiore a Dio
God's Right Seat has their members dilute their as much as possible through artificial methods using a spell, using the basis that the Virgin Mary's original disappeared after being deeply touched by the Holy Spirit. In spite of them not being completely free of their original sin, it is apparently enough for them to be able to carry out spells of a level surpassing what normal people can, spells that deal with the angels and the Lord. But because the "Sin" in this case also means the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, they also lose the ability to be a normal magician and use the magic that is for humans to use.

However, eliminating their sin was just a means to an end, as their goal is literally "God's Right Seat". According to Lidvia Lorenzetti, God's Right Seat is a practical organization, who asks heretical questions such as: If he does not appear before people, does God really exist? Or is God merely pretending to be an angel and still making contact with us? This is due to the legends that although a human cannot become gods, there have been tales from scholars and alchemists that a human can evolve into an angel. As such, this behavior of God's Right Seat is because of their desire to find a method to become angels on top of eliminating the original sin that humans are bound by. However, God's Right Seat has found a loophole which allows them to become God through becoming an angel, even though there is no evidence that God actually descended mixed among angels. The angel they chose to attain this is Archangel Michael who is on the right side of God, which is in Christianity means equivalency indicating that Michael is equal to God. The group was created with the goal of sitting in God’s Right Seat, and believes that once they are in the Right Seat they will be able to use that power to evolve into an existence different again from an angel, which is La Persona Superiore a Dio—The One Above God.

Other goals
Both the Pope and Terra of the Left references that God's Right Seat are the shepherd for the followers, as is the reason why he called upon them to efficiently guide the people to salvation. What's more, Acqua of the Back says that God's Right Seat exists to change the world, and that it is up to the members to continuously create advantages to the organization.

Despite their arrogance, according to Leivinia, members of God's Right Seat think of themselves as pious Christians for taking various actions within the framework of Christianity. However, she doesn't apply this to Fiamma of the Right as she says that he is an extremist and that his methods went beyond the rules of Christianity. Moreover, even God's Right Seat didn't want World War III from occurring as a global conflict could easily lead to them destroying their own land.

Enlistment
How members are recruited are not known, though God's Right Seat apparently does not have any problems of having converts from different Christian denominations such as Acqua of the Back, and women such as Vento of the Front, into its fold.

Naming and colors
The names of the members is based on what element they represent and the cardinal position that element correspond to. Moreover, their colors are based on what color their element correspond to. For some reason the position is required to be in Italian. For example, Fiamma of the Right, Fiamma means flame or fire in Italian, and corresponds to the right cardinal position, which is represented by Archangel Michael. Meanwhile, his colors are primarily red as it corresponds with his element.

Presumably, the positions between the elements of wind and earth between the two members of the group, if God's Right Seat were to continue existing, maybe applied as the distortion have been fixed after Fiamma of the Right fixed it during World War III.

Hierarchy
The organization was originally established to aid the Pope, and to be supposedly under his control. They were different from the Cardinals, the administrators, the strategists etc. Basically, they who didn’t exist in the "pyramid" or hierarchy in the first place, they can easily give advice to the Pope behind the scenes. Although this later changes as the Pope comes under the heels of God's Right Seat, and only uses him for formalities. An example of this is having his signature in a document to make Touma an enemy of God.

The number of members was always designated as 4, representing the 4 Archangels that were the most important amongst Angels. Just like this, the members of God's Right Seat could be changed and replaced ‘internally’ to keep it alive. However, according to Fiamma of the Right, the locations of the Front, Left, and Back can be replaced anytime as long as he lived. Despite this, a member can apparently have subordinates of their own, as evidenced by Terra of the Left. Within their ranks, apparently only Fiamma of the Right can give orders.

Although hidden in the shadows and controling people, Leivinia Birdway doesn't mark them similarly to the Academy City Board of Directors, as they liked experimenting on themselves.

Background
Referenced as the one who controlled an entire age behind the scenes by Leivinia Birdway, as the great calamities sweep through Europe, the God's Right Seat was born from the necessity of needing to have people that can talk to the Pope regarding the matters of the Church. Sometimes they had power and knowledge that even the Pope had to rely on, and is considered to be a special existence separate from the hierarchies of the clergy.

It is unknown how long the God's Right Seat existed or how many members have passed through its ranks, for only two of its members, Vento of the Front and Acqua of the Back, are known to have their history grounded in modern times.

Recent History
Fiamma of the Right, later noticed the distortion of the Laws of the World, which allowed the dreadful Grand Magic Angel Fall to occur, and hoped to fix it by saving the world and becoming La Persona Superiore a Dio, though it can be assumed that he desired to become La Superiore a Dio prior to the distortion as well as prior to Pope Matthias calling out for them for help. Regardless, when the Pope, whom have heard of the God's Right Seat prior to their meeting elated there was a quick way to guide people, called upon them in order to efficiently save the people, and here, manipulated the Roman Catholic Church and the other members of God's Right Seat to his will in order to start World War III and achieve his goals.

Academy City Invasion Arc
On September 30th, following the failure of La Regina del Mare Adriatico, Vento of the Front launched an attack on Academy City, unleashing her Divine Punishment on the population and personally attacking Kamijou Touma. She was eventually defeated by him, but was retrieved by Acqua of the Back.

Document of Constantine Arc
Terra of the Left subsequently oversaw the use of the Document of Constantine to incite Anti-Academy City riots across the world, with God's Right Seat and the Roman Catholic Church hoping to get the Russian Orthodox Church to join their side for the upcoming conflict. In the middle of the Avignon Cleanup Operation, Terra fought Touma and Itsuwa of the Amakusa Church, but was eventually defeated by the former, who then destroyed the C-Document.

After escaping back to the Vatican, Terra was killed in St. Peter's Basilica by Acqua after the latter learned how he had killed innocents to calibrate his magic.

Acqua of the Back Arc
Acqua proceed to personally go after Kamijou Touma in Academy City, seriously injuring him and giving an ultimatum. After destroying Academy City forces sent after him, he overwhelmed the Amakusa Church in battle and then fought Kanzaki Kaori, a fellow Saint, displayed a great gap between their power. He was eventually defeated when the combined efforts of Kanzaki, the Amakusa and the returned Touma enabled Itsuwa to strike him with the Saint Destroyer, causing the powers within his body to go out of control and self-destruct. Acqua managed to survive but in the process was reduced to the level of a regular Saint.

After Acqua's defeat, Fiamma of the Right appeared before the Pope and revealed his true intentions. The Pope tried to stop Fiamma but Fiamma easily defeated him with the Holy Right, destroying St. Peter's Basilica in the process. With the Pope out of commission, Fiamma took control of the church in order to achieve his goals, while the other two members moved to take action against him.

British Royal Family Arc
After using the church's influence to have the countries of Europe put pressure on the United Kingdom, Fiamma took advantage of Carissa's coup d'état attempt (in which Acqua had reappeared and fought against Carissa's forces) to seize the remote control for Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Meanwhile in Russia, Vento helped Sasha Kreutzev escape from Russian Orthodox Church forces under the command of Fiamma's allies.

World War III Arc
Having Russia start World War III against Academy City, Fiamma took steps to obtain the remaining materials for his goal. On September 30th, he attacked the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations and successfully abducted Sasha despite the efforts of Touma, Elizalina and their allies. Vento attempted to defeat him with the modified La Regina del Mare Adriatico but was defeated. Acqua also fought on the battlefield, eventually losing his power as a Saint after absorbing half of the Telesma of the summoned Archangel Gabriel in order to weaken it.

Following the rise of the Star of Bethlehem and the summoning of Gabriel, Fiamma fixed the Distortion of the Laws of the World and briefly achieved La Persona Superiore a Dio by severing and absorbing Touma's right hand, but was ultimately thwarted and defeated.

With the conclusion of World War III, God's Right Seat ceased to exist, with Fiamma of the Right being pursued by the enemies he created to reach his goal.

Trivia

 * The composition of God's Right Seat's members and the archangels they are associated with is based on the Invocation of the Archangels from the Golden Dawn's, which consists of the practitioner calling on the presence of the archangels and associating them with the four cardinal directions: Before me Raphael; Behind me Gabriel; On my right hand Michael; On my left hand Uriel.