Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen (; ; born 12 June 1952), also known by his Orthodox Russian name Nikolai Kirillovich Romanov (Николай Кириллович Романов), and recognized with the regnal name Emperor Nicholas III by Monarchist Party supporters of the Imperial Throne, is the eldest son of Emich, 7th Prince of Leiningen and his wife, Duchess Eilika of Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, and is an elder brother of Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen.
He is a claimant to the defunct throne of the Russian Empire, held until 1917 by the Imperial House of Romanov, as a grandson of Grand Duchess Maria Kirillovna (1907–1951), eldest child of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, who claimed the Russian crown from exile in 1924. He is a great-great-grandson of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and grandnephew of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia. In 2013, the Monarchist Party of Russia declared him the primary heir to the Russian throne upon his conversion from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and in 2014 announced the formation of the Imperial Throne, wherein Karl Emich had agreed to assume imperial dignity as Emperor Nicholas III. As such, however, he came into competition with the widely recognized pretender to the throne, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, who is recognized by the Patriarch of Moscow.
He also claimed the headship of the House of Leiningen in the past.
Marriages and children
He married Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Öhringen on 8 June 1984. He had one daughter by this marriage, Princess Cécilia of Leiningen (born 10 June 1988). Princess Margarita died in 1989 in a car accident.
On 24 May 1991, Prince Karl Emich married morganatically Gabriele Renate Thyssen. After an inheritance dispute, he desisted claim to the family's legacy in favour of his younger brother Andreas, 8th Prince of Leiningen. The couple had one daughter, Princess Theresa Anna Elisabeth of Leiningen (born 16 April 1992) In 1998, Karl Emich and Gabriele were divorced and she became the second wife of the Aga Khan IV.
He married Countess Isabelle von und zu Egloffstein in a civil ceremony on 8 September 2007 in Amorbach, and in a religious ceremony on 7 June 2008 in Pappenheim (her maternal grandmother, Countess Ursula (1927-2018), was the heiress of the Pappenheim estate, and a member of the mediatised House of Pappenheim). On 12 April 2010, they had a son, Prince Emich Albrecht Karl of Leiningen. The family lives at Kunreuth castle.
Because his marriage to Countess Isabelle would not have been deemed equal according to the Pauline Laws, their son, Prince Emich, though considered a dynast of the House of Leiningen, cannot inherit his claim to the headship of the House of Romanov, which shall pass to his brother, Prince Andreas (1955 - ), and the latter's descendants born of equal marriages upon the death of Karl Emich, and on the condition that they should convert to Orthodoxy.
Lawsuit
In 2000, Karl Emich began the final round of a lawsuit to inherit £100 million worth of castles, property, and a Mediterranean island that had been denied him by his family because he chose to marry into the Thyssen family. Karl Emich was disinherited shortly after his 1991 wedding, as his mother, father, and brother Andreas withheld approval, contending that the bride did not meet the mediatized family's traditional standard for aristocratic lineage. The marriage was therefore deemed to constitute a violation of an 1897 Leiningen family edict requiring that dynastically valid marriages be authorised by the head of the Leiningen family (or by successful appeal to a panel of mediatized nobles), such permission historically being granted for brides descended from royalty or the titled nobility. Karl remarked about the whole affair, "From the very beginning of our marriage I was turned into an enemy. We were both subjected to enormous pressure. No marriage can withstand that sort of thing in the long term. I had hoped things would improve when our child arrived. But after our daughter was born, nothing happened. My mother has refused to speak to me since the wedding". Karl Emich maintained that the stress this feud put upon his marriage is the reason why Thyssen left him, converted to Islam, and eloped with Aga Khan IV.