Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark

Who was Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark?

Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark (10 August 1888 – 21 January 1940) was a member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg Royal House.

He was born at Pavlovsk, Imperial Russia; his parents were George I of Greece and Olga, Queen of Greece; he was the youngest of their eight children (twenty years younger than their oldest child, Constantine), and was called "Christo" by the family.

He was briefly engaged to Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife in about 1910. (Alexandra's mother, Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, was a daughter of Alexandra of Denmark, an older sister of George I of Greece, his father). The engagement was terminated when disapproving parents learned of the liaison.

Prince Christopher's mother, Queen Olga, was a former Grand Duchess of Russia before her marriage to King George I of Greece. With the coming of the revolution, eighteen close family members including his first cousin Nicholas II and his wife and five children, who were of the Romanov family, were murdered.

On 1 January 1920, Christopher married a very wealthy American widow, None May "Nancy" Stewart Worthington Leeds, at Vevey, Switzerland. His wife, who was previously widowed and divorced, was granted the title "HRH Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark", and her fortune, which she inherited from her second husband, a tin millionaire, greatly helped the Greek Royal Family during their exile in the 1920s. The wedding followed a six-year engagement while the legal details of marriage to a twice-married commoner were worked on. Shortly after their marriage she developed cancer, and died in London on 29 August 1923, leaving no children from this marriage. Prince Christopher did, however, have a stepson, William Bateman Leeds Jr (1902–1971), who married, in 1921, Princess Xenia Georgievna Romanova of Russia, who was Christopher's niece through his elder sister, Marie, Grand Duchess George of Russia.

Prince Christopher later remarried; his second wife was Princess Françoise of Orléans (25 December 1902 – 25 February 1953). Françoise was a daughter of Jean d'Orléans, Duc de Guise and Isabelle d'Orléans. Isabelle was a daughter of Philippe, Comte de Paris and his wife and first cousin Marie Isabelle d'Orléans. They were married in 1929 in Palermo, Italy; the civil ceremony was on 10 February, and the religious one on 11 February; in connection with the wedding Françoise de Guise, Princess of Orléans became Her Royal Highness, Princess Françoise of Greece and Denmark. They had one child, Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark, who was born in 1939, shortly before his father's death in Athens.

Prince Christopher of Greece died on 21 January 1940, aged 51.