www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Prince Charles in a Romanian monastery

fact of the matter is, ALL the royal houses of Europe(with the possible exception of the Albanian) are related. world war one was ultimately a squabble amongst cousins.
Much Love,
Jonn

Dear John,

Absolutely!

King Michael of Romania is also in line to the British Throne . . . at the event I attended, he was presented as "50th in line to the throne of Canada."

And when he spoke about The Queen, he said, "my cousin and your Queen."

Alex

And intermarriage among the Royal Houses at that time was not uncommon, up to the 4th degree of consanguinity (first cousins) as a means of preserving the Kingdom's (or Empire's) realm.

At least they did not adopt the practice of some of the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, where the apparent heir to the throne would marry his own sister to preserve the "purity" of the dynasty.

The frowns of civilized society and the proscriptions proven by genetics was to come much, much later!

Amado

Actually the House of Hapsburg has gone to considerable trouble to make certain that they are NOT related to the Battenburgs!

H.M. King Michael said that, did he? Interesting - the proper way for one King to describe another is "my brother", not "my cousin". Perhaps King Michael wished to be polite, but not overly intimate.

University students in Bucharest have taken to demanding that Teoctist should answer a simple question: Is His Majesty still King of Romania or not? Teoctist keeps dodging the question, which I find amusing (so does the King, I suspect).

Incognitus

Dear Incognitus:

How could King Michael refer to Queen Elizabeth II as his "brother?"

Unless there's something we don't know about the Queen's gender? :p

Amado

(A macho man! )

Rumours oh how people love rumours. Prince charles must belong to the state church to be King. The Succession laws in the UK are very specific.His Father is related to the Greek Royal family. which is either Danish or german depending on how you look at it.

Dear Incognitus,

Can we answer for Teoctist? Was he crowned and anointed as king in an Orthodox ceremony?

In fact, are there any living kings, or ex-kings, who can claim to have been legitimately crowned in an Orthodox Church?

Elias

Prince Philip, the Queen's consort was a grandson of a king of Greece (who wasn't actually Greek-he was a younger son of the Danish royal family who was essentially "hired" to be the king of modern Greece). Philip's mother Alice was a princess of Battenburg (an small independent duchy that was absorbed into the German Empire before WWI). After his father, Prince Andrew of Greece, died his mother became an Orthodox nun.She joined a convent located on the Mt. of Olives which was founded by sevral Russian noblewomen widowed during WWI and the Russian Revolution. Thie rhabits were designed by Fabrege, of Imperial Easter Egg fame.
Philip's "household name" was Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gl�cksburg and he was a prince of Greece and of Denmark. Just prior to his marriage to Elizabeth he renounced his Danish and Greek titles and changed his surname to "Mountbatten".
The English royal family was of the household of "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha", but during WWI King George the 5th changed the family's name to "Windsor". The Battenburgs, many of whom lived in Britain and held high ranks in the military followed suit and adopted the name "Mountbatten".
An act following Queen Elizabeth's accesion declared that the name of the house will remain "Mountbatten" through the reign of Elizabeth and her heir, but on the 3rd generation will change to Windosr-Mountabtten, so William and Harry will be W-M.

Some deposed German royals who are distant relatives of the Windsors still retain the courtesy title "Prince of the United Kingdom". Since she married Prince Ernst of Hannover, Princess Caroline of Monaco and thier daughter are "Princess of the UK & Northern Ireland"

As far as Charles attraction to Orthodoxy, he had the Creed sung in Russian at the service to bless his marriage to Camilla. He has been rumored to favor disestablishment of the C of E, which would allow him to profess any religion he choses.

To respond to Father Elias's question, yes, King Michael was indeed anointed and crowned King by the Romanian Orthodox hierarchs - that's why Teoctist finds the question so embarrassing. King Simeon of Bulgaria is another such King. Offhand I can't think of any more who were actually crowned and anointed - there is of course King Constantine of Greece, but to the best of my limited knowledge, the Greeks did not hold a coronation for him - that probably goes back to the nineteenth century, when the Kings of Greece were not Orthodox.

The present King of Spain was not actually crowned, but was anointed - and the anointing tradition is older than the coronation tradition.

As to the sudden change of name of the "Windsors", Kaiser Wilhelm II is said to have remarked at the time that to mark this dubious event the Imperial Theatre at Potsdam would stage a performance of Shakespeare's well-known play "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg Gotha".

Incognitus

Dear JohnyJ,

Actually, British law only states that the Sovereign of the U.K. cannot be a Roman Catholic.

The Sovereign is also NOT the head of the Church of England or that of Scotland.

The Sovereign is simply their "Temporal Protector." (Only King Henry VIII went so far as to declare himself "Head of the Church in England" but he saw himself, and to all effects was, a schismatic Catholic, not a Protestant in the classical sense).

Certainly, when Charles becomes king, he is well within his rights to alter the law, if he needs to, should he decide to become Orthodox.

The last time a significant change like this was made was in the time of King George V, I believe.

George V did not like the anti-Catholic thrust of the Royal Oath of his day (with specific references to the "worship of saints, images" etc.).

He asked Parliament to drop those offensive references in deference to his Catholic subjects.

Parliament refused and so George refused to go through with the coronation ceremony . . .

George won the standoff and the offensive words were dropped from the oath.

There were times following Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth that British Sovereigns became Roman Catholic but either kept this a secret or else became formally Catholic on their death-bed.

Charles II did the latter, his father King Charles I, honoured as a saint by Anglo-Catholics and others, was rumoured to have become an RC, and James II did become an RC and went to war with the Protestants over it.

Charles I was on very good terms with the Orthodox Greeks and he even described himself as the protector of the "Orthodox Church of England."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, who was beheaded by Parliament for his Catholic ways especially, would give King Charles I lists of candidates for Anglican bishoprics.

On the King's orders, he would indicate which among the candidates were "orthodox" with an "O" and which were Puritan with a "P."

The King always chose those with an "O" beside their name.

Alex

Speaking of the Royal family I've thought of something.

If HRH Prince Charles decides to pass on the Sovereignty to his eldest son William, the Protestants will finally have their "King Billy" again.

Brad

Along with "Harry Pot-head . . ."

Alex