Greece’s last king, Constantine II, was laid to rest on Monday at the Tatoi royal cemetery near Athens, after a private funeral that drew dozens of European royals and hundreds of others.
Constantine, who died last week at the age of 82, was a divisive figure in the country’s history, and the government drew criticism from conservatives after deciding not to give him a state funeral.
Former prime minister Antonis Samaras was among those who said Constantine, a former Olympic gold medalist for Greece, deserved to be buried as a former head of state.
In his eulogy, Constantine Paul’s eldest son said his father ascended the throne during a “difficult period” and had left the country to avoid “fresh bloodshed”.
“This is not the end, father. You will live forever in our minds and hearts,” he said, adding that the former king had helped Athens secure the 2004 Olympics.
At least 2,000 people have lined up outside the Athens Metropolitan Cathedral since dawn on Monday to pay their respects, according to state television ERT.
Police declined to give an estimate of the amount.
Some people gathered holding royal flags, flowers and portraits of the former king and his wife, the Danish princess Anne-Marie.
Many people bowed and kissed the coffin covered with the Greek flag.
“He was an honorable man, a family man who never harmed Greece,” pensioner Fotis Stamatiou, 85, told AFP.
“We are here to pay tribute to our king… We love him,” added retired Arietta Papadaki.
Thrown out by a coup
The private service, presided over by Archbishop Ieronymos, head of the Greek Orthodox church, began shortly after noon with nearly 200 guests in attendance.
Royals from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain flew in the service.
The British Crown is represented by Princess Anne, daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Katerina Sakellaropoulou – whose official residence is a former palace – did not attend the funeral.
The government was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos and Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni.
Surveys in the past decade have shown most Greeks either feel indifferent or resentful of the former king.
The last member of a century-long dynasty, Constantine had ruled for just three years when a military dictatorship seized the country in 1967.
An unclassified US diplomatic cable said Constantine may have considered martial law before the coup.
Nearly eight months after the junta seized power, Constantine staged a failed military counter-coup.
He fled to Rome with the rest of the royal family, and later to London.
The junta abolished the monarchy in 1973, and Greeks voted not to restore the royal family after the restoration of democracy in 1974.
– ‘The Greek kingdom is no more’ –
Then locked in a bitter property dispute with the Greek state, Constantine had his Greek citizenship revoked in 1994.
The former king returned to Greece in 2013, selling the 9,500-square-foot (880-square-meter) London mansion where his family had lived for four decades.
The day after Constantine’s death in a private Athens hospital, the prime minister announced that his funeral would be held privately.
Mitsotakis insisted on Saturday that it was the right decision, stressing that the former king was the leader of “the Kingdom of Greece, which no longer exists”.
He said that history “will judge Constantine fairly and harshly”.
There was a panicked race over the weekend to prepare the royal tomb at Tatoi, about 29 kilometers (18 miles) north of Athens, after it nearly burned down in the 2021 summer fire.
Most members of the former royal family are buried in the former royal summer palace at Tatoi, including the founder of the Danish dynasty George I.
Constantine is married to Anne-Marie – sister to Queen Margrethe of Denmark – and has five children.
She is also the sister of Sofia, the queen mother of Spain.
As crown prince, he won the sailing gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and became an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee.