Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen
Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, also known by his Orthodox Russian name Nikolai Kirillovich Romanov and his pretended regnal name Emperor Nicholas III, is the eldest son of Emich, 7th Prince of Leiningen and his wife, Duchess Eilika of Oldenburg, and is an elder brother of Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen.
He is a claimant to the defunct throne of the Russian Empire, held until 1917 by the Imperial House of Romanov, as a grandson of Grand Duchess Maria Kirillovna, eldest child of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, who claimed the Russian crown from exile in 1924. He is a great-great-grandson of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and grand nephew of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia. In 2013, the Monarchist Party of Russia declared him the primary heir to the Russian throne upon his conversion from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and in 2014 announced the formation of the Imperial Throne, wherein Karl Emich had agreed to assume imperial dignity as Emperor Nicholas III.
He also claimed the throne of Leiningen in the past.
Marriages and children
He married Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Öhringen on 8 June 1984. He had one daughter by this marriage, Princess Cécilia of Leiningen. Princess Margarita died in 1989 in a car accident.On 24 May 1991, Prince Karl Emich married 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 In 1998, Karl Emich and Gabriele were divorced.
He married Countess Isabelle von und zu Egloffstein in a civil ceremony on 8 September 2007 in Amorbach, and in a religious ceremony on 7 June 2008 in Pappenheim. On 12 April 2010, they had a son, Prince Emich of Leiningen.
When they wed, Gabriele Thyssen was a Roman Catholic and Karl Emich a British dynast, as a legitimate descendant of George II of Great Britain at which time a provision of the Act of Settlement 1701 stipulated that in the event the British crown is to devolve upon an heir married to Roman Catholic, that heir is permanently disabled from succeeding to the throne, which would pass instead to the next Protestant in the order of succession who had not been married to a Roman Catholic. The Succession to the Throne Act, 2013, repealed that marital restriction, with retroactive effect, as of 26 March 2015.
Lawsuit
In 2000, Karl Emich began the final round of a lawsuit to inherit £100 million worth of castles, property, and a Mediterranean 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, 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, and eloped with Aga Khan IV.
Claim to the Russian Throne
The Russian Monarchist Party recognises Karl as the heir to the Russian throne, and claims he and his wife converted on June 1, 2013, from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, enabling his accession. The couple received Orthodox names of Nikolai Kirillovich and Yekaterina Fyodorovna.Nicholas III and the Imperial Throne
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. He outlined that Karl Emich, upon adhering to the Orthodox denomination, obtained a right to take this see according to pre-Revolution Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire. 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 Imperial Throne micronation 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". 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. The see in the documents is viewed as a legacy of the first-ever Christian Roman Imperial Throne of Constantine the Great, deemed to have passed through the Byzantine Empire to the Russian Empire and the House of Romanov by religious process.Later Bakov announced he has purchased a plot of land in Montenegro to form a location for the new state, and is in negotiations with Montenegro authorities for recognition of the state. He also announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to grant such a plot in Yekaterinburg in response to Karl Emich's request, transmitted to Putin by Bakov, a former MP. 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 and Albania on possible collaboration and future state recognition. In particular, Bakov met with Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. Later there was a similar talk with President of Gambia Yahya Jammeh 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 of Russian ancient ruler Ivan III and his wife Sophia Palaiologina. Talks with Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, 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 to sell three inhabited Pacific islands to Bakov to set up the state which is expected to be renamed to Romanov Empire.
In December 2017, Bakov announced that the purchase of artificial islands belonging to the Republic of Gambia had been successfully negotiated and the Romanov Empire had become a partially recognised country.