Prince Gustav Albert zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg was baptized on Saturday in the chapel of Berleburg Castle in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The only child of Princes Gustaf and Carina of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg became the first member of a European royal house to be born through surrogacy in the United States last May.
His six baptismal godparents were Prince Christian of Denmark, the eldest of Crown Princes Frederick and Mary; Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark, first cousin of Prince Gustav and King Felipe VI; actress Ellen Hillingso; Arabella Gaggero; Prince Francis Albert of Oettingen-Spielberg and Prince Charles Antony of Waldeck and Pyrmont.
From the Danish royal family, in addition to Prince Cristián, who will turn 18 on October 15, his parents and Princess Benedicta, grandmother of the baptized baby and sister of Margaret II of Denmark, attended the event.
The baby’s parents, he 54 and she 55, have started a new life after settling in a German court that the will of Prince Gustavo’s grandfather, which set out strict rules from the past for the consorts of the Sayn-Wittgenstein-house. Berleburg, was no longer binding. As a family spokesman explained, “the ideas of the Nazi era no longer had any legal or moral basis.”
The lawsuit was resolved in 2020 after the demand of a relative of the prince, Ludwig Ferdinand, who claimed part of the inheritance and the headship of the Sayn-Wittgentein-Berleburg house, Gustavo and Carina married in June 2022 and then began the procedures to bring an heir into the world.
