PHOTO: Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna

On 8th October (O.S. 25th September) 1905, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (1876-1938) married his paternal first cousin Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh (1876-1936).

Princess Victoria Melita was raised in the Anglican faith but was later confirmed in the German Lutheran church by her mother. This means she was raised as a Protestant and later formally associated with the Lutheran branch of Protestantism. 

Despite Princess Victoria Melita’s faith, the secret and incestuous marriage [forbidden by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Civil Law of the Russian Empire] took place in the Russian Orthodox chapel at the home of Count Adlerberg in Tegernsee, Bavaria.

The bride had no intentions of accept the Orthodox faith at the conclusion of the marriage, which was required when a foreign princess married a Romanov grand duke. She did not convert to Orthodoxy until nearly two years later, on 30th (O.S 17th) January 1907.

Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich was fourth in line to the Russian throne, after Nicholas II, Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and the Tsar’s younger brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.

It was a simple ceremony, attended by Victoria’s mother [Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna], her sister Beatrice, Count Adlerburg, Herr Vinion, along with servants, which included a gentleman-in-waiting, two ladies-in-waiting, and Count Adlerburg’s housekeeper.

Emperor Alexander III’s younger brother and womanizer, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (1850-1908) attended the wedding, placing the wedding crown over Kirill’s head during the ceremony.

In a letter to her daughter Marie [Queen of Roumania], Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, noted that Victoria “looked very handsome in a very becoming light grey dress and a yellow hat.  She was calmly beaming, very touching to see, very somber. Kirill was “calmly nervous” but also calmly pleased. He shows so little outward feeling, but one saw that he was emotional.”

Grand Duke Kirill noted in his memoirs [My Life on Russia’s Service, Then and Now] , that during the wedding feast, “there was a buzzard raging outside . . . ” Was this an omen?

The marriage shocked, not just the members of the Russian Imperial Family, but the Russian Empire. Further, it caused a scandal in the royal courts of of Great Britain and Europe. The bride, Princess Victoria was divorced from her first husband, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse. Not only was the Hessian grand duke Victoria’s first cousin, he was also Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s brother.

The Empress already disliked her former sister-in-law and first cousin, and defended her brother from rumours about his alleged homosexual orientation, which were being “actively spread” by his wife. Alexandra was not alone in her opposition, her mother-in-law, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was also “appalled at the effrontery of Kirill’s marriage.”

The Emperor’s reaction to this forbidden marriage was immediate: he declared that he would not recognize the marriage, and that the children born in this union would receive the surname of the princes of Kirilovsky, with the title of Serene Highness.

Shortly after Kirill’s return to Russia [from Tegernsee, the Tsar stripped him of his imperial allowance of 100,000 rubles (paid annually) and title of Imperial Highness, his honours and decorations, as well as his position in the Russian Imperial Navy and then banished him from the Russian Empire.

PHOTO: Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna [daughter of Emperor Alexander II], later Duchess of Edinburgh and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, with her daughter Princess Victoria Melita (right) and her son-in-law Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich.

Kirill’s marriage to Victoria was in open defiance of the Russian Orthodox Church, which ruled that marriage between first cousins were forbidden. Kirill knew that the Tsar’s younger brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich had been forbidden to marry his first cousin, Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but defied both the Church and the Emperor nevertheless.

It should also be noted, that being the daughter of a British prince [her father was Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (1844-1900)], Princess Victoria was a member of the British Royal Family, and thus required the formal approval of Britain’s King Edward VII to marry Kirill, as required by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. Victoria openly defied the British King.

In addition, the couple defied the the Civil Law of the Russian Empire, which forbid such a marriage. The couple: both Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich and Princess Victoria Melita were both, completely lacking in morals!

Victoria’s mother, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna [daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia] later wrote to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, that she felt “responsible for having arranged the marriage of Ducky and Kirill,” a decision she regretted.

In 1908, after the death of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich and Victoria’s conversion to Orthodoxy the year prior, Nicholas II restored Kirill to his rank of captain in the Imperial Russian Navy and his position as aide de camp to the Emperor. He was given the title Grand Duke of Russia and from then on his wife was styled as Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. 

Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna died on 2nd March 1936; Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich died on 12th October 1938.

The couple defied both Emperor Nicholas II, King Edward VII of Great Britain, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church and the Civil Law of the Russian Empire . The couple’s great-granddaughter Maria Vladimirovna, believes that she is “Empress de jure of Russia,” which she most certainly is NOT!!

While this author seldom criticize Nicholas II, it is regrettable that he did not stand firm on upholding the the Pauline Laws, which forbid morganatic marriages by members of the Imperial Family, without the consent of the reigning Emperor. During Nicholas II’s reign, three grand dukes openly defied their Emperor by entering into morganatic marriages: Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich in 1902, his cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich in 1905 and his brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich in 1912.

Had he done so, these three grand dukes would have rightfully, been stripped of their imperial allowance of 100,000 rubles, paid annually from the State budget, their title of Imperial Highness, their honours and decorations, and their permanent banishment from the Russian Empire.

© Paul Gilbert. 8 October 2025