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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis chaired a ministerial assembly Wednesday morning to debate particulars of the funeral, along with his workplace asserting the non-public burial and saying the federal government can be represented by the tradition minister.
Constantine’s household mentioned the funeral service would happen on the Athens cathedral. It mentioned the precise timing of the service and burial, and the period the previous king’s physique would stay within the church, “might be decided at a later time.”
Few in Greece have a lot nostalgia for the previous royal household, however different European royals, a lot of whom are associated to Constantine, are more likely to attend his funeral.
His older sister is Sophia, spouse of former King Juan Carlos I of Spain, whereas the Greek-born Prince Philip, the late husband of Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II, was an uncle. Constantine was one of many godparents of Prince William, the inheritor to the British throne.
The household, which had dominated Greece from 1863 other than a 12-year republican interlude throughout 1922-1935, was descended from Prince Christian, later Christian IX of Denmark, of the Home of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg department of the Danish ruling household.
Constantine’s spouse, Anne-Marie, is the youthful sister of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe. In an announcement, the royal palace in Copenhagen mentioned it was “with nice disappointment” that the queen had discovered of Constantine’s loss of life.
“The royal household’s ideas are presently with H.M. Queen Anne-Marie and the whole Greek household,” the Danish palace mentioned.
An Olympic crusing gold medalist, Constantine was vastly fashionable when he acceded to the throne in 1964 on the age of 23, however a lot of that help quickly waned along with his lively involvement within the machinations that introduced down the elected authorities of Prime Minister George Papandreou.
The episode involving the defection from the ruling occasion of a number of lawmakers destabilized the constitutional order and led to a army coup in 1967. Constantine ultimately clashed with the army rulers and was pressured into exile.
When the dictatorship collapsed in July 1974, Constantine was desperate to return to Greece however was suggested in opposition to it by veteran politician Constantine Karamanlis, who returned from exile to go a civilian authorities.
After his triumphal win in November elections, Karamanlis known as for a plebiscite on the monarchy. Constantine was not allowed within the nation to marketing campaign, however the end result was unambiguous and extensively accepted: 69.2% voted in favor of a republic.
To his ultimate days, Constantine, whereas accepting that Greece was now a republic, continued to type himself King of Greece and his youngsters as princes and princesses regardless that Greece not acknowledged titles of the Aristocracy.
For many of his years in exile he lived in London and was mentioned to be particularly near his second cousin, Charles, now King Charles III.
“The eventful course of former King Constantine marked and was marked by turbulent occasions within the nation’s trendy historical past,” Mitsotakis mentioned in an announcement. “By wounds that had been nevertheless healed by the alternatives, the free conscience and the maturity of our folks. But in addition by his personal discreet, it’s true, stance all through the post-dictatorship years.”
Constantine’s loss of life marked the “formal epilogue of a chapter that had definitively closed with the 1974 referendum,” Mitsotakis mentioned, extending his condolences to the previous king’s household. Historical past, he mentioned, “will decide the Constantine of public life pretty and strictly. As a result of the particular person Constantine is already accompanied by disappointment and respect within the face of the lack of life itself.”
Whereas it took Constantine 14 years to return to his nation, briefly, to bury his mom, Queen Frederica, in 1981, he multiplied his visits thereafter and, from 2010, made his residence in Greece.
There have been continued disputes: In 1994, the then socialist authorities stripped him of his nationality and expropriated what remained of the royal household’s property. Constantine sued on the European Courtroom of Human Rights and was awarded 12 million euros in 2002, a fraction of the five hundred million he had sought.
Alongside along with his spouse, he’s survived by 5 youngsters, Alexia, Pavlos, Nikolaos, Theodora and Philippos, and 9 grandchildren.
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