Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen (german: Karl Emich Nikolaus Friedrich Hermann Prinz zu Leiningen; russian: Карл Эмих Николаус Фридрих Герман цу Лейнинген; born 12 June 1952), also known by his Orthodox Russian name Nikolai Kirillovich Romanov (Николай Кириллович Романов), and recognized with the

regnal name A regnal name, or regnant name or reign name, is the name used by monarchs and popes during their reigns and, subsequently, historically. Since ancient times, some monarchs have chosen to use a different name from their original name when they ...

Emperor Nicholas III by Monarchist Party supporters of the

Imperial Throne Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, T ...

, is the eldest son of

Emich, 7th Prince of Leiningen Emich Kyrill, Prince of Leiningen (german: Emich Kirill Ferdinand Hermann Fürst zu Leiningen; 18 October 192630 October 1991) was a German entrepreneur and son of Karl, Prince of Leiningen. He was the 7th Prince of Leiningen from 1946 until h ...

and his wife, Duchess Eilika of

Grand Duchy of Oldenburg The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg (, also known as Holstein-Oldenburg) was a grand duchy within the German Confederation, North German Confederation and German Empire that consisted of three widely separated territories: Oldenburg, Eutin and Birk ...

, and is an elder brother of Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen.''Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser'' XVII. "Hohenlohe". C.A. Starke Verlag, 2004, pp. 191, 249–251. . He is a

claimant A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the ...

to the defunct throne of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

, held until 1917 by the Imperial

House of Romanov The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastacia of Russia, Anastasi ...

, as a grandson of Grand Duchess Maria Kirillovna (1907–1951), eldest child of

Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (russian: Кирилл Владимирович Романов; ''Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov''; – 12 October 1938) was a son of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, a grandson of Emperor Ale ...

, who claimed the Russian crown from exile in 1924. He is a great-great-grandson of Emperor

Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Fin ...

and grandnephew of

Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia (russian: Владимир Кириллович Романов; 21 April 1992) was the Head of the Imperial Family of Russia, a position which he claimed from 1938 to his death. Early life Vladimir was bo ...

. In 2013, the Monarchist Party of Russia declared him the primary heir to the Russian throne upon his conversion from

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

Eastern Orthodox Christianity Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

, and in 2014 announced the formation of the ''

'', wherein Karl Emich had agreed to assume imperial dignity as ''Emperor Nicholas III''. As such, however, he came into competition with the widely recognized pretender to the throne, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, who is recognized by the Patriarch of Moscow. He also claimed the headship of the

House of Leiningen The House of Leiningen is the name of an old German noble family whose lands lay principally in Alsace, Lorraine, Saarland, Rhineland, and the Palatinate. Various branches of this family developed over the centuries and ruled counties with Imp ...

in the past.

Marriages and children

He married Princess Margarita of

Hohenlohe-Öhringen The House of Hohenlohe () is a German princely dynasty. It ruled an immediate territory within the Holy Roman Empire which was divided between several branches. The Hohenlohes became imperial counts in 1450. The county was divided numerous time ...

on 8 June 1984. He had one daughter by this marriage, Princess Cécilia of Leiningen (born 10 June 1988). Princess Margarita died in 1989 in a car accident. On 24 May 1991, Prince Karl Emich married

morganatically Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spou ...

Gabriele Renate Thyssen. After an inheritance dispute, he desisted claim to the family's legacy in favour of his younger brother Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen. The couple had one daughter, Princess Theresa Anna Elisabeth of Leiningen (born 16 April 1992) In 1998, Karl Emich and Gabriele were divorced and she became the second wife of the

Aga Khan IV Shāh Karim al-Husayni (born 13 December 1936), known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Ismaili followers and elsewhere as Aga Khan IV, is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailis, a denomination within Shia Islam. He ha ...

. He married Countess Isabelle von und zu

Egloffstein Egloffstein is a municipality in the district of Forchheim in Bavaria in Germany. Geography Location The village of Egloffstein is a state-recognised climatic spa and lies in the valley of the Trubach river on the hillside beneath the epon ...

in a

civil ceremony A civil, or registrar, ceremony is a non-religious legal marriage ceremony performed by a government official or functionary. In the United Kingdom, this person is typically called a registrar. In the United States, civil ceremonies may be performed ...

on 8 September 2007 in Amorbach, and in a religious ceremony on 7 June 2008 in

Pappenheim Pappenheim is a town in the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Altmühl, 11 km south of Weißenburg in Bayern. History Historically, Pappenheim was a statelet within Holy Roman Empire. I ...

(her maternal grandmother, Countess Ursula (1927-2018), was the heiress of the Pappenheim estate, and a member of the mediatised House of Pappenheim). On 12 April 2010, they had a son, Prince Emich of Leiningen. The family lives at Kunreuth castle. Because his marriage to Countess Isabelle would not have been deemed equal according to the

Pauline Laws The Pauline Laws are the house laws of the Romanov rulers of the Russian Empire. The name comes from the fact that they were initially established by Emperor Paul I of Russia in 1797. Paul I abolished Peter the Great's law that allowed each rei ...

, their son, Prince Emich, though considered a dynast of the

, cannot inherit his claim to the headship of the

, which shall pass to his brother, Prince Andreas (1955 - ), and the latter's descendants born of equal marriages upon the death of Karl Emich, and on the condition that they should convert to

Orthodoxy Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Church ...

Lawsuit

In 2000, Karl Emich began the final round of a lawsuit to inherit £100 million worth of castles, property, and a

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

island that had been denied him by his family because he chose to marry Thyssen. Karl Emich was disinherited shortly after his 1991 wedding, as his mother, father, and brother Andreas withheld approval, contending that the bride did not meet the mediatized family's traditional standard for aristocratic lineage. The marriage was therefore deemed to constitute a violation of an 1897 Leiningen family edict requiring that dynastically valid marriages be authorised by the head of the Leiningen family (or by successful appeal to a panel of mediatized nobles), such permission historically being granted for brides descended from royalty or the titled nobility. Karl remarked about the whole affair,

"From the very beginning of our marriage I was turned into an enemy. We were both subjected to enormous pressure. No marriage can withstand that sort of thing in the long term. I had hoped things would improve when our child arrived. But after our daughter was born, nothing happened. My mother has refused to speak to me since the wedding".

Karl Emich maintained that the stress this feud put upon his marriage is the reason why Thyssen left him, converted to

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

, and eloped with

Claim to the Russian Throne

The Russian Monarchist Party recognises Karl as the heir to the Russian throne, since he and his wife converted on 1 June 2013, from

, enabling his accession. The couple received Orthodox names of Nikolai Kirillovich and Yekaterina Fyodorovna.

Nicholas III and the Imperial Throne

Coat of arms of the Sovereign State Imperial See

In early 2014 Russian Monarchist Party leader Anton Bakov announced he views the "Imperial Throne" from the point of international law as a subject of state sovereignty regardless of any other attributes, referring to analogies with the

Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...

. He outlined that Karl Emich, upon adhering to the Orthodox denomination, obtained a right to take this see according to pre-

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire The Russian Constitution of 1906 refers to a major revision of the 1832 Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire, which transformed the formerly absolutist state into one in which the emperor agreed for the first time to share his autocratic pow ...

. Bakov proposed that the Prince accept the throne, thereby forming a new independent state and incorporate it into Bakov's promotional projects such as the Monarchist Party's

micronation A micronation is a political entity whose members claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by world governments or major international organizations. Micronations are classified ...

and several others. In April 2014 Bakov and Karl Emich appeared in a newspaper textual and photo report declaring that the Prince accepted the proposals as well as the title of "Emperor Nicholas III" (as successor to

Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pol ...

). In the report Bakov emphasized that Karl Emich has long been an entrepreneur but henceforth he would refrain from all non-royalist related public activities. The report included a "Manifesto Grant of the Constitution to the State", signed by Nicholas III, proclaiming the formation of the sovereign state "Imperial Throne" aimed at consolidating all the people around the world devoted to Christian

monarchism Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...

. The see in the documents is viewed as a legacy of the first-ever Christian Roman Imperial Throne of

Constantine the Great Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterran ...

, deemed to have passed through the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

to the

and the

by religious process. Later Bakov announced he has purchased a plot of land in

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = ...

to form a location for the new state (80 ha, "twice as big as

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

"), and is in negotiations with Montenegro authorities for recognition of the state. He also announced that Russian President

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

declined to grant such a plot in

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

(Bakov's residence and site of the 1918 Romanov assassination) in response to Karl Emich's request, transmitted to Putin by Bakov, a former MP.Гость «Стенда» – Антон Баков, Председатель Монархической партии России.
— 2.06.2014 In early 2015, as a follow-up to the International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis, Bakov told the press there are talks with Montenegro authorities to establish an offshore zone at this plot, aimed at providing financial intermediation to Russian companies. Also in 2015 Imperial Throne representatives claimed to be in talks with the authorities of the neighboring

Republic of Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...

and

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...

on possible collaboration and future state recognition. In particular, Bakov met with Macedonian Prime Minister

Nikola Gruevski Nikola Gruevski ( mk, Никола Груевски, pronounced ; hu, Nikola Gruevszki; born 31 August 1970) is a Macedonian politician who served as Prime Minister of Macedonia from 2006 until his resignation, which was caused by the 2016 Mace ...

. Later there was a similar talk with

President of Gambia This is a list of the heads of state of the Gambia, from the independence of the Gambia in 1965 to the present day. From 1965 to 1970 the head of state under the Constitution of 1965 was the queen of the Gambia, Elizabeth II, who was also the q ...

Yahya Jammeh Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh (born 25 May 1965) is a Gambian politician and former military officer who was the leader of The Gambia from 1994 to 2017, firstly as chairman of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) from 19 ...

at the 70th UN General Assembly session in New York. Also, talks were held with Macedonian and Montenegro Eastern Orthodox clergy — Bakov discusses creation of churches associated with Imperial Throne and proposes

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

of Russian ancient ruler

Ivan III Ivan III Vasilyevich (russian: Иван III Васильевич; 22 January 1440 – 27 October 1505), also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus'. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his bl ...

and his wife

Sophia Palaiologina Zoe Palaiologina ( grc-x-byzant, Ζωή Παλαιολογίνα), whose name was later changed to Sophia Palaiologina (russian: София Фоминична Палеолог; ca. 1449 – 7 April 1503), was a Byzantine princess, member of ...

. Talks with

Gaston Browne Gaston Alfonso Browne (born 9 February 1967) is the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda. He has been its leader since 2014. Before entering politics, he was a banker and businessman. Early life Browne wa ...

, Prime Minister of

Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda (, ) is a sovereign country in the West Indies. It lies at the juncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, at 17°N latitude. The country consists of two majo ...

, also took place. In early 2017 it was announced by many world mass media that there is a preliminary consent of the government of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

to sell three inhabited Pacific islands to Bakov to set up the state which is expected to be renamed to Romanov Empire. Kiribati rejected the proposal in February 2017. In December 2017, Bakov announced that the purchase of artificial islands belonging to the Republic of The Gambia had been successfully negotiated and the Romanov Empire had become a partially recognised country. The claim was denied by the Gambian government. In June 2021 Karl Emich, or Nikolai Kirillovich (Nicholas III) gave his first-ever interview in Russian language where he clarified his civil and political attitude and told some details about history of his family. http://www.imperialgerold.ru/news/intervyu-knyazya-nikolaya-kirillovicha-printsa-leyningenskogo.html

Marriages and children

Lawsuit

Claim to the Russian Throne

Nicholas III and the Imperial Throne

Ancestry

References

Further reading