HIH Grand-Duchess Maria attended King Leka I’s and Queen Susan wedding in Madrid in October
1975. King Leka I and Queen Susan attended the marriage of HIH Grand-Duchess Maria with HIH
Prince Franz Wilhelm von Hohenzollern in Madrid in September 1976.
HIH Grand-Duke Georgui attended, on behalf of His mother, the ceremony of the translation of the
body of King Zog I of the Albanians and the State Funeral held in Tirana in November 2012.
The 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty is marked on the 6th of March. Michael Romanov,
whose grandfather, Nikita, wa a central adviser to Ivan the Terrible, was unanimously elected Tsar of
Russia by a national assembly on 21 February 1613. Since that time, Romanov family, as the second
and last Russian imperial dynasty, ruled the country right until 1917.
Orders of chivalry of the Crown of Albania
Established under the republican regime by Ahmet Zogu, head of
State, the Albanian chivalric orders were adopted as dynastic and
merit awards by the House of Zogu since the proclamation of the
monarchy in September 1928.
The King of Albanians, head of the House of Zog, is automatically
chief and sovereign grand master of these Orders.
During the Italian invasion, the King of Italy, Victor-Emmanuel
III, usurped the crown of Albania and awarded the royal orders in
an illegitimate way as a kind of colonial ones. After his
renunciation of the crown of Albania acquired by violent means in
1939, the chief of the House of Savoy also stopped being grandmaster of the royal Albanian orders.
(Note: Officially the Albanian royal court never recognized the
reign of the Savoy family in Albania.)
H.M. King Zog I and H.M. Leka I of Albanians, continued to award legally the royal orders and in a
continuous way in exile (1939-2002) and after the return of the Royal Family in Albania.
According to the principles involved in assessing the validity of Orders of chivalry, it is generally
admitted by specialists that such ex-sovereigns who have not abdicated retain their full rights as “fons
honorum” in respect even of those Orders of which they remain Grand Masters which would be
classed, otherwise, as State and Merit Orders.
The “fons honorum” of the Royal House of Albania includes three orders of chivalry, and a military
order which is organised as a high distinguished military decoration.
HRH Crown Prince Leka II of the Albanians remains the head of the orders.
The Orders of chivalry (in order of precedence)
COLLAR OF ALBANIA
(Known also as the Collar of honor of Albania) Established 3.12.1925.