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Ceremony at Peles Castle to mark the 90th anniversary of Mihai I being proclaimed king of Romania
Peles Castle of Sinaia on Wednesday hosted a celebratory ceremony to mark the 90th anniversary of Mihai I being proclaimed king of Romania.
Attending the ceremony in the Hall of Honour, which started with the King's Anthem being played, were crown Princess Margareta and his husband Prince Radu.
Prince Radu delivered a speech to Princess Margareta in which he sad that King Mihai is probably "the only man destined to become a chief of state who has managed to live 90 years after the day of his enthroning."
"You are hosting today an event that I believe is unprecedented in the history of the world. Probably His Majesty, our King, is the only man destined to become a chief of state who has managed to live 90 years after the day of his enthroning. (...) Never before has the Hall of Honour hosted such an event with such a design and such content. (...) When he succeeded his grandfather at just 5 years, nobody in this world could have imagined that a child could shoulder the destiny of a state, particularly in such a hard century and in a part of the world that had been so hard tested. (...) This 5-year-old boy was strong, and his strength resides in the fact that his existence, albeit innocent, was guaranteeing day in day out that Romania stayed a sovereign state headed by a constitutional monarchy (...) He has managed almost to outlive his own destiny, if such is possible, and lived to be such an advanced age that, defeated by illness and weakened by age, he had to transfer his presence and authority to his successor merely because, physically speaking, he could no longer shoulder such a responsibility. But even by so doing on March 1, 2016, the king has continued to be above and paradoxically be among us this evening, although he is not with us in body," Radu said in his speech.
The schedule also included a prayer officiated by Bishop Varlaam, followed by a student of the "Princess Maragareta" Secondary School of Bucharest reading an excerpt from an essay called "My King," penned in October 2011 by Physics MSc Theodor Brasoveanu, a graduate of the Princeton University.
The military band concluded the event by performing three music works.
Previous to the ceremony, the Music Hall at Peles Castle hosted the release of an album by Prince Radu called "Povestea Castelului Peles" (Peles Castle Story).