The former king of Greece Constantine passed away tonight at the age of 82. Recently, he was hospitalized in intensive care unit, after a stroke.
The man who spent most of his life as a “king without a kingdom”. He himself, however, used to say that “I am not the former king, I am King Constantine, period”. Later, in a rare interview, he appeared more relaxed about the whole matter. “I don’t mind the past. We are all already something…”
The announcement of the family of the former King Constantine II:
It is with deep sadness that the Family announces that King Constantine, beloved husband, father and brother, passed away yesterday, January 10, 2023, while being treated at the ‘YGEIA’ hospital.
A further announcement will follow regarding his funeral procession and burial.
Personal Office of King Constantine,
Former King of the Greeks
He was born on June 2, 1940, at the family home in Paleo Psychiko. He was the only son of Prince Paul I and later King and Frederica. On the day of his birth 101 cannon shots were fired from Lycabettus Hill, as was customary to announce the birth of the new prince. A few months later he was baptised in the Diocese of Athens under the patronage of the Armed Forces.
The first years of his life were spent in Cairo, where the royal family had taken refuge, having escaped shortly after the Battle of Crete had begun. Constantine was not the successor of his generation. This arose after the sudden death of his uncle George II. The latter passed away on April 1, 1947, from a heart attack. Although he had married Princess Elizabeth of Romania they never had children and divorced.
Thus, his brother and father of Constantine became King of the Greeks in 1947 and was the fifth member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty, which had ascended the Greek throne in 1863. After the enthronement of his father Paul, he was appointed crown prince, as the constitutional provisions stipulated.
In 1955 he was awarded the title of “Duke of Sparta”. He continued his two-year studies in the Corps of the Armed Forces. “The other kids had free weekends and holidays, while I did military training,” he had commented in an interview.
In 1960 he enrolled at the Athens Law School. It was the year he also participated in the Olympic Games in Rome with the Greek sailing team. He participated as the helmsman of the boat “Nireus” crewed by Odysseus Eskitzoglou and George Zaimis. The team won Greece’s first Olympic gold medal since 1912. At that time, however, he was essentially “apprenticing” at his father’s side, accompanying him on many of his official visits to Europe, Asia, and Africa.
He succeeded King Paul who died at 62 from cancer on March 6, 1964. Soon after, he married Anna Maria, the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark. “I lost my father at 23 and got married at 24… It would be impossible to live without having such a woman. I admire her patience.” The couple had originally met in 1959 in Denmark at a formal ball.
In the 1974 referendum, the citizens chose with a percentage of 69.2% the abolition of the monarchy. He remained abroad and visited Greece for the first time in February 1981 and that was to attend the funeral service at the funeral of his mother Frederica.
For many years, at least until the late 1980s, no news or even a picture of him circulated in the country. Private television and magazines slowly reintroduced the family and their life into the Greek public life with related tributes and reports.
In 1992, Constantine entered into an agreement with the government of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, according to which he transferred most of his real estate in Greece to a non-profit foundation in exchange for the return of the old summer palaces of Tatoi and the right to own and export a large number of movable assets from the country. In 1994 the government of Andreas Papandreou, which had meanwhile returned to power, annulled the 1992 agreement and stripped Constantine of his property in Greece and Greek citizenship. It was the year that the wedding of his eldest son Paul to Marie Sandal took place in London.
On October 21, 1994, Constantine, the former king, along with eight other members of his family, filed a complaint against Greece at the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that Law 2215/1994 violated provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. In November 2000, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece, while on November 28, 2002, the European Court awarded 13.7 million euros, which the former finally received as compensation in March 2003. Constantine then announced the creation of the “Anna – Maria” Foundation as a body for allocating his compensation to charitable purposes.
The beginning of 2000 marks his return to Greece. He buys the house in Porto Heli. It was where the family gathered, they gave interviews, hosted famous guests. In 2015, his three-volume autobiography entitled “King Konstantinos. Untitled”. However, his villa in Porto Heli was recently sold. He had moved with his wife to an apartment in Kolonaki. There he celebrated his last birthday in a close family circle.
His health had been extremely strained in recent years, and he retired from public life. In 2009 he had undergone surgery for his heart. In 2013 he had a fainting episode and was hospitalized before returning to the hospital in 2016 with stroke symptoms. He had been hospitalized several times in the last year. The last time he had made an official appearance was at his son Philip’s wedding to Nina Flor in October 2021. He was confined to a wheelchair, where he remained, when he was last seen with his wife and sisters in central Athens in mid-October.
