Name Duchess of | ||
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Born 22 August 1972
Bad Segeberg, Germany ( 1972-08-22 ) Issue Archduchess Zsofia
Archduchess Ildiko
Archduke Karoly-Konstantin Father Duke Johann of Oldenburg Mother Countess Ilka of Ortenburg Spouse Georg von Habsburg (m. 1997) Children Karl-Konstantin von Habsburg Parents Duke Johann of Oldenburg, Countess Ilka of Ortenburg House Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, House of Lorraine Grandparents Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Nikolaus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg Similar People Georg von Habsburg, Gabriela von Habsburg, Princess Regina of Saxe‑Meiningen, Karl von Habsburg, Otto von Habsburg | ||
Duchess Eilika of Oldenburg (née Duchess Eilika Helene Jutta Clementine of Oldenburg) (born 22 August 1972) is the wife of Georg von Habsburg, the third in the line of succession to the former Austro-Hungarian throne. She was in line of succession to the British throne before her marriage to a Roman Catholic. She is a daughter of Duke Johann of Oldenburg and his wife Countess Ilka of Ortenburg. Her father is a younger son of Nikolaus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont.
Contents
Wedding ceremony
On 18 October 1997, Eilika married Georg von Habsburg in St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, Hungary. He is the younger son of Otto von Habsburg (himself a son of the deposed Emperor Charles I of Austria) and his wife Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen. Among the wedding guests were Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Prince Albert of Monaco, and Hassan II of Morocco. Pope John Paul II sent his best wishes to the couple, and ambassadors of many foreign nations, including the United States, attended as representatives. The 25-year-old Eilika wore a high-necked white dress, along with a veil worn by her great-grandmother Duchess Elisabeth Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1896. The ceremony was broadcast live on Hungarian television; roughly 2,000 Hungarian citizens and tourists gathered outside the church to witness the wedding.
Their wedding was the first union between the Catholic Habsburgs and Lutheran Oldenburgs in their families' histories (Archduchess Isabella of Austria married Oldenburg King Christian II of Denmark before the Reformation) and the first marriage between members of the houses of Habsburg and Oldenburg since the wedding of Archduke Joseph and Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia, herself a member of the house of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, a branch of the Oldenburgs. It was also the second time that a Habsburg was married in Hungary since the fall of communism in 1989.
Issue
The couple have three children:
Succession and living arrangements
Georg is the only one of his siblings to make a dynastically equal marriage according to previous Habsburg family laws (well, his sister Andrea actually married the Hereditary Count of Neipperg, heir to a mediatised family, and the requirements had already been narrowed for his uncle Rudolf). Had his father not accepted his older brother Karl's marriage to Baroness Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, which would have been otherwise considered morganatic, Georg would have been his father's heir after his elder brother, as it would have been with Archduke Franz Ferdinand towards Emperor Franz Joseph.
She and her family live next to the village of Sóskút, in Pest County in Hungary. Their eldest child was the first Habsburg to be born in Hungary in more than fifty years. While Georg is a Roman Catholic, Eilika has chosen to remain a Lutheran.
Titles and styles
Ancestry
Eilika's ancestors in four generations