I was sad to hear about the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, mostly because I empathize with Queen Elizabeth II, as I am a widow too. Since the man who had been her stay and support is gone, as is mine, I feel for her.
Also my mother and she share the same birthday, April 21--we always joked about whose turn it was the make the official birthday greeting call.
And I am not a royalist. If I was a royalist, I would have to be a Jacobite and regard the current occupant of the throne as the usurper of the Catholic Stuart line, descendants of King James II and VI, the Old Pretender, and the Young Pretender, since there aren't any descendants of the Cardinal Pretender! So I'm not posting this because of burning interest in the House of Windsor. By the way, my parents lived on WINDSOR Street in their own little palace.
No, my interests are mostly because of the issue of Catholicism and/or religion in England, and secondarily just because of the human interests of family and history.
Prince Philip was born on the island of Corfu as the Greek ruling family was going to exile. He was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church, which probably means that he received all three Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation), and Holy Communion as an infant.
He certainly endured and survived a confusing and disrupted childhood in the early to mid twentieth century. Yet I recall reading a review in the Wall Street Journal of a recent biography last year (I can't access the full review now) that he never revealed much about that childhood and youth. His biographer stated that “For him duty is at the center of everything. It is not a choice.” so he just did his duty and didn't talk about it that much. That's probably one reason his death is receiving so much attention now: that almost unheard of sense of duty and reserve when self-promotion is the norm combined with self-proclaimed victim-hood.
His family separated after their exile from Greece in the throes of the Greco-Turkish war and World War I; Philip studied on the Continent and in England and fought for England in World War II (in the Royal Navy); his four sisters had married Germans and Philip's brothers-in-law fought for Germany and some joined the Nazi Party. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, resided in the south of France and Monaco; his mother, Princess Alice of Battenburg (known as Princess Andrew in Greece after her marriage), who was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was congenitally deaf and was committed to an asylum in Switzerland for a time.
Alice had joined the Anglican Church, but when she and Prince Andrew were married, their ceremonies were first Civil, then Lutheran AND Greek Orthodox. She later became Greek Orthodox, while her son Philip joined the Anglican Church. I don't know if his Orthodoxy (if he had remained a member of the Greek Orthodox Church) would have been any impediment to his marriage to the then Princess Elizabeth, but Geoffrey Fisher, then the Archbishop of Canterbury received him into the Church of England in October 1947 before their wedding on November 20 that year. Prince Philip's surviving sisters could not attend the wedding (nor Elizabeth's coronation in 1953) because of their Nazi connections.
His mother is the person who fascinates me most: she is known as a "Righteous Among the Nations" because of her aid to the Jews in Greece during World War II. She followed the example of her relative, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, becoming a religious sister in the Orthodox (Greek) Church while Elizabeth became a nun in the Russian Orthodox Church. She died in England but is buried in the same church as Elizabeth, the Church of Mary Magdalene at Gethsemane in Jerusalem. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna has been canonized a saint in the Russia Orthodox Church and is honored as a martyr at Westminster Abbey!
Since Prince Philip died on the Friday of the Octave of Easter, and Gospel readings for the Masses of the Catholic Church have been filled with references to St. Mary Magdalen, I've chosen a painting of St. Mary Magdalen with the Resurrected Jesus to illustrate this post: Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena (1835) by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, a Russian painter (1808-1858).
In the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection of the Dead, may Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, rest in the peace of Christ.
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