Sofía married then Infante Juan Carlos of Spain in 1962 and became queen of Spain upon her husband's accession in 1975.[1] On 19 June 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated in favour of their son Felipe VI.[2]
Her maternal grandmother, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussiawrote in her 1965 memoir: I have always had a particular fondness for her, and esteemed her modesty, understanding and goodness coupled with her candid realism touches with a fine sense of humour. There, she is very much like her father. My daughter told me what the little Sophia had once said to her about him: 'You know, Mama, I think we have the nicest Papa in the world.'[3]
Sofía met her paternal third cousin, the then Infante Juan Carlos of Spain on a cruise in the Greek Islands in 1954; they met again at the wedding of the Duke of Kent, her paternal second cousin, at York Minster in June 1961.[6] Sofía and Juan Carlos married on 14 May 1962, at the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius in Athens.[6]
Sofía and Juan Carlos at the wedding of Prince Karl of Hesse and Countess Yvonne Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, The Hague, 1966
Sofía converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Catholicism to become more palatable to Catholic Spain, and thus relinquished her rights to the Greek throne.
Sofía was in Greece on a private visit to her brother, King Constantine II, when the 1967 Greek military coup took place. Except for a brief stay for the funeral of her mother in 1981, Queen Sofía would not visit Greece until 1998.
In 1969, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco named Juan Carlos his successor under the official title "Prince of Spain".[7] Juan Carlos acceded to the throne in 1975, upon the Franco's death.[7] Juan Carlos, after his accession to the Spanish throne, returned with his family to the Zarzuela Palace.
The couple has three children: Elena (born 20 December 1963); Cristina (born 13 June 1965); and Felipe (born 30 January 1968).[8]
Besides accompanying her husband on official visits and occasions, Sofía also has solo engagements. In her first public appearance as Queen, Sofía attended a Shabbat service at the Beth Yaacov synagogue in Madrid in June 1976, marking the first time in modern Spanish history that a member of the Spanish royal family had visited a Jewish house of worship.[9]
She is executive president of the Queen Sofía Foundation, which in 1993, sent funds for relief in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is honorary president of the Royal Board on Education and Care of Handicapped Persons of Spain, as well as the Spanish Foundation for Aid for Drug Addicts. Additionally, she has served as the patroness of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute since 2003.
As Queen, Sofía never publicly commented on political issues. However, in October 2008, Pilar Urbano's book La Reina muy de cerca ("The Queen up close") sparked strong controversy as it contained alleged statements by the Queen on issues debated in Spanish society. She criticized the military intervention in Afghanistan, where Spanish troops were taking part at the time, defended religious education in schools, and expressed her conviction that gender violence publicity[clarification needed] would encourage new cases to occur. She also rejected abortion and euthanasia as well as same-sex marriage.[11][12] The Royal Household commented that the book "puts in Her Majesty's mouth alleged claims that [...] do not correspond exactly to the opinions expressed by Her Majesty".[13] While the two major parties - Socialists and People's Party - refused to comment,[14] her opinions were subjected to heavy criticism by Republican parties like IU and ERC and LGBT activists.[15][16][17]
In May 2012, Sofía was reportedly refused permission to attend the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II by the Spanish government, citing tensions over fishing rights at Gibraltar.[18]
In July 2012, Sofía visited the Philippines for a fourth time. She inspected several development projects around the former Spanish colony that her country's government is funding via the Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarollo (AECID). She visited the National Library, National Museum and the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, which had the oldest extant university charter in Asia and housed the world's largest collection of suyat scripts. She also met with Spanish nationals residing in the Philippines, and attended a reception at the Spanish Embassy. She also attended a state dinner in her honour at Malacañan Palace hosted by PresidentBenigno Aquino III,[19][20] and thanked the president for promoting the Spanish language in the Philippine educational system.[21]
Impaled, I quarterly, 1st Gules a castle Or, triple-embattled and voided gate and windows, with three towers each triple-turreted, of the field, masoned Sable and ajoure Azure (Castile); 2nd Argent a lion rampant Gules crowned, langued and armed Or (Leon); 3rd Or, four pallets Gules (Crown of Aragon) and 4th Gules a cross, saltire and orle of chains linked together Or, a centre point Vert Argent (Navarre); enté en point, with a pomegranate proper seeded Gules, supported, sculpted and leafed in two leaves Vert (Granada); inescutcheon Azure bordure Gules, three fleurs-de-lys Or (Bourbon-Anjou); II, Azure, a cross argent (Greece); Inescutcheon, quarterly by a cross Argent fimbriated Gules, the Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog, 1st Or, three lions in pale passant Azure, crowned Or, langued and armed Gules and nine hearts Gules (Denmark); 2nd Or, two lions in pale passant Azure, langued and armed Gules (Schleswig); 3rd Azure, party per fess, in chief three crowns Or (the former Kalmar Union), per pale, in dexter base, Gules, a stockfish Argent crowned Or (Iceland ancient), in sinister base, Azure, party per pale, a) a ram passant Argent armed and unguled Or (the Faroe Islands), b) a polar bear rampant Argent (Greenland); 4th party per fess, the chief, Or, in gold, nine hearts Gules arranged 4, 3, 2 beneath a lion passant Azure, langued and armed Gules (King of the Goths), the lower half, Gules, a crowned lindorm Or (King of the Wends); overall an escutcheon Gules quarterly, 1st a nettle leaf Argent with a indented bordure Gules (Holstein), 2nd a swan Argent gorged with a crown Or (Stormarn), 3rd a knight dressed in armor Or on a horse Argent and an oval shield Azure with a cross Or on his arm (Dithmarschen), 4th a horse's head Or (Lauenburg) overall another escutcheon party per pale, in dexter Or, two bars Gules (Oldenburg), in sinister Azure, a cross Or (Delmenhorst).
The Queen's personal Royal Standard is that of her husband (a dark blue square flag) bordered with the colors of the former royal standard of Greece (a white cross on a blue field), which was used by her father, and charged with her personalized coat of arms.[citation needed]
Symbolism
The personal coat of arms of the Queen impales the Spanish Royal Arms (her husband's shield) to the dexter (viewer's left) with her father's shield, the arms of King Paul of Greece – the arms of Greece with an inescutcheon which bears the coat of arms of Denmark (1819–1903 version) as used when George I became king of Greece in the 1860s and showing the dynastic link to the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty; a shield containing a cross from the Order of the Dannebrog and subcoats representing Denmark, Schleswig, the former Kalmar Union, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, Lauenburg, Oldenburg, Delmenhorst, and the former Danish royal titles of King of the Wends and Goths.[citation needed]
Notable published works
En Decelia: fragmentos cerámicos de Decelia y miscelánea arqueológica. Athens, (1959–1960). Edited in Spanish in Spain, 2013.[27][28]ISBN9788494103308
^ abJuan Carlos never bore the traditional title of the Spanish heir apparent, Prince of Asturias. Bernecker, Walther (January 1998). "Monarchy and Democracy: The Political Role of King Juan Carlos in the Spanish Transición". Journal of Contemporary History. 33 (1): 65–84. doi:10.1177/003200949803300104. S2CID157966975.
1 Also princess of Norway 2 Also princess of Greece 3 Also princess of Iceland 4 Not Danish princess by birth, but created princess of Denmark Princesses that lost their title are shown in italics
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