Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark, first cousin of the Duke of Edinburgh and second cousin of Queen Sofia, died this weekend at the age of 85, in a hospital in Athens, where he will be buried. Prince Michael was the
last surviving grandson of King George I of GreeceHe was also descended from the House of Bourbon, on his mother’s side.
However, Michael decided to be known for more than just being a member of Greek royalty.
He renounced his succession rights in 1965.to marry the love of his life, Marina Karella, a painter and sculptor, and became a prestigious historian under the name of Michel de Gres. The marriage produced two daughters, Princess Olga of Savoy-Aosta and Princess Alexandra of Greece.
Michael, born in 1939 in Rome, was the only son of Prince Christopher of Greece, younger brother of the Duke of Edinburgh’s father, and his second wife, Princess Frances of Orleans.
His father died at only 51 years old, in 1940.when he was barely one year old, and his mother, in 1953, following a depression, leaving the prince orphaned at just 14 years old, and in the custody of his uncle Henri d’Orléans, Count of Paris.
Michael is related to the British, Danish, French, Spanish and Romanian royal families. The prince lived, during the World War II exile, in Morocco, in Malaga, in Spain and finally in Paris, before returning to Greece, where he became a great support for the royal family, Prince Paul, Queen Frederica and
her three children, Princes Constantine, Sophia and Irene. Miguel also participated in the cruise organized by Queen Frederica in 1954 to unite the young European royal heirs.
Military coup
Michael decided to study Political Science in Paris. He then did his military service in Greece, in the Hellenic Coast Guard. He was the only member of the Greek royal family to remain in the country in 1967, when the military coup of the Colonels took place and King Constantine, his nephew, had to leave the country with his family and go into exile. However, Michael had renounced his rights to the Greek throne to marry the well-known artist Marina Karella, in 1965, since he had been in Greece for a long time.
It was a marriage with a commonerThat renunciation allowed him to devote himself to his passion, History, especially that of Greece.
King Constantine and Anne-Marie of Greece, a very close-knit couple. / GTRES
It was his love story with
the painter and sculptor Marina Karella which made him very popular among his compatriots. The couple met in Amman, Jordan, through mutual friends at a party, and the prince was immediately fascinated by this young artist, daughter of the Athenian industrialist Theodoros Karella. She had studied Fine Arts in Greece and Paris, something that brought them together especially since Michael’s mother was French and he had been educated on French soil.
Love at first sight
“It was love at first sight. I thought she was lovely and she was very kind to me, seeing her was like a revelation,” the prince recalled in his memoirs. A few weeks later they became engaged, but it took two years for Michael to obtain permission from the royal family, and
renounce his rights to the Greek throne to be able to marry a young woman without royal blood. Miguel always maintained that this renunciation gave him a great feeling of freedom and allowed him to choose his own life.
The wedding took place on February 7, 1965.
at the Royal Palace of Athens and it was a great event, attended by the Greek royal family and the Countess of Paris, her grandmother.
Queen Sofia in the 1980s. / GTRES
The couple
settled in New York for more than a decade and then in Paris, before returning to Greece. The prince became a famous novelist, biographer and historian specialising in ancient Greece, the Ottoman Empire and European royal families. He was a great traveller and a great amateur photographer.
The prince and his wife had settled on the island of Patmos in Greece. “What does it mean to be a prince?” he asked in a recent interview. “It means being like everyone else, but being considered as someone special. I respect the past, but I think that royalty is of no interest, that it is a relic.” In 2023, he published an illustrated autobiography, in which he revealed all the details of a legendary past, which, according to him, no longer existed.
He dedicated many novels to his ancestorssuch as ‘The Last Tsars’, ‘The Farewell Empress’ or ‘The Regent’.
