“Long live the king” and “Constantine, Constantine,” chanted the crowd gathered outside the Metropolis Cathedral in the capital.
“We will remember him forever,” says lawyer Giannis Katsiavos, one of those who made it to the scene.
Royalty from all over Europe attended the funeral service, including the royal couple of Sweden and Denmark.
Constantine’s wife Anne Marie, sister of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, accompanied the coffin along with the couple’s eldest son Pavlos as it was carried from the church into a hearse. Constantine was subsequently laid to rest at the former royal palace of Tatoi, where his parents and ancestors are buried.
Denmark’s Crown Prize Frederik, Prince Joachim and Queen Margrethe outside the church in Athens.
In 1974, the monarchy was abolished in Greece through a referendum, which the king then explicitly accepted. He spent years in exile before returning to his Greece in the fall of his age. He was 82 years old.
— By the grace of God, you took your last breath in your homeland, which you always loved more than anything else throughout your life, Pavlos said in a eulogy to his father.
Among the funeral guests were also the Spanish royal family. Constantine’s sister Sofia is the mother of Spain’s King Felipe VI, also the wife of the former King Juan Carlos I who was also present in Athens. Princess Anne represented the British royal family, as Constantine was one of Prince William’s godfathers.
King Constantine is taken to his final rest.