Constantine II
Prince of Achaea • Head of the House
His Royal Highness Constantine Zaccaria de Damalà, Prince of Achaea, is the Head of the Royal and Princely House of Zaccaria de Damalà. As the heir to the sovereign rights of the last Latin rulers of the Peloponnese, he is the repository of the historical dignities of the Principality of Achaea and the Kingship and Despotate of Asia Minor.
Born in New York on 19 April 1992, the Prince is the only child of Prince Stefanos I and Yvonne Baralis. Raised in the Orthodox faith of his ancestors, he assumed the headship of the House in 2017, following the abdication of claims by the intermediate generation. He has since dedicated his tenure to the restoration of the House's historical memory, the correction of its genealogical record, and the reconstitution of its legacy.
The Dynastic Succession
The Prince’s accession resolves a century-long deviation in the House's leadership. Following the death of Prince Pavlos I in 1925, the rightful senior line—descended from his first cousin, Ioannis Athanasios Damalas (b. 1877), who had emigrated to the Americas—was wrongly presumed extinct. In this vacuum, a cadet branch of the family assumed the de facto leadership of the House in Greece, retaining control of the ancestral patrimony.
Prior to the recent genealogical rectification, the Prince’s branch was widely acknowledged as the inevitable successors to the line residing in Piraeus. The cadet branch, currently represented by its final surviving member, faces imminent extinction with no issue. Consequently, the headship of the House was destined to revert to the Prince's line by simple virtue of survival and agnatic kinship.
However, the formal genealogical verification of 2023 revealed a more profound truth: the Prince's branch was not merely the next in seniority, but had been the rightful senior line by primogeniture since 1925. The investigation confirmed that the assumption of seniority by the cadet branch was based on a historical error, institutionalised by nearly a century of silence.
Dynastic Rights & Protocol
The Prince represents the continuity of two primary dynastic dignities rooted in the history of the Latin East. The first is the Principality of Achaea, acquired as an allodial sovereignty by his direct ancestor, Prince Centurione II, in 1404. Following the illegal cession of the territory under duress in 1429, these rights were transmitted to Centurione’s son, John Asen Zaccaria, who briefly revived the Principality from 1453–1455, whose status was recognised during rule and in exile by the Holy See and nearly all contemporary Italian states.
The second is the titular Kingship and Despotate of Asia Minor, a royal dignity granted to the Zaccaria dynasty in 1325 by the Latin Emperor Philip II of Taranto and Empress Catherine II of Valois. This dignity, granted independently of territorial possession, remains a hereditary prerogative, making the Head of the House the 24th King and Despot in continuous succession.
In accordance with international dynastic law, the Prince views his rank as an incorporeal hereditary property (sine imperio). Acknowledging the established geopolitical boundaries of the 21st century, he explicitly disavows any desire for territorial restoration. Honouring the historical precedent of his 19th- and 20th-century predecessors, he maintains a staunch loyalty to the modern Hellenic monarchy (the House of Glücksburg), preserving his own House's legacy as a self-contained incorporeal patrimony of historical dynastic parity, rather than an active political pretension.
Securing the Future: Marriage & Succession
The Prince and Princess of Achaea on their wedding day, 2024.
The foundation for the future of the newly restored line was laid by the Prince's 2024 marriage to Brianna Annecca, now Her Royal Highness The Princess of Achaea. To ensure the long-term stability of this succession, the Prince promulgated comprehensive modern House Laws on 24 May 2025—the septcentenary of the dynasty's royal elevation—formally codifying the lineage’s strict adherence to the Salic tradition and updating the governance of the autonomous family community.
This future was further cemented by the subsequent birth of their son and heir, Martino Constantino, in September 2025. Named in honour of the Great Defender of Christendom, the first King and Despot of Asia Minor, the Hereditary Prince bridges the dynasty's 14th-century origins with its future.
The baptism of The Hereditary Prince Martino at the 11th-century Nea Moni monastery in Chios, April 2026.
In the spring of 2026, the Prince brought his lineage full circle by arranging the baptism of his infant son on the island of Chios at the Nea Moni monastery, an 11th-century imperial foundation and UNESCO World Heritage site. By successfully securing rare ecclesiastical permission for a private sacrament at such a revered monument, His Royal Highness demonstrated the family’s enduring local eminence, actively anchoring the historic Latin name of his Crusader ancestors into the spiritual epicentre of their Byzantine legacy.
Civic Patronage & The Hellenic Legacy
The historic 1885 emblem of the Rowing Club, surmounted by the Princely Crown of Achaea as a formal Badge of Patronage granted by the House in 2026.
Under the Prince's direction, the House has undertaken significant efforts to undo the modern obscurity that befell the line during its century of silence. Beyond opening the archives for study—resulting in the publication of the forensic historical study Achaean Disputes (2024)—he has renewed the House's active patronage of institutions founded by his ancestors. This includes the Ereto Rowing Club of Piraeus—the oldest sporting institution in Greece and the Balkans, founded by royal charter in 1885—which remains under the historical aegis of the dynasty.
In April 2026, the Prince made a highly publicised official visit to the island of Syros, where he was formally received by the Mayor at City Hall to reaffirm the dynasty’s historical relationship with the city—originally shaped by his ancestor, Mayor Ambrosios Damalas. At the formal invitation of the Municipality, he returned to the island in June to attend the grand bicentennial celebrations commemorating the naming of Ermoupoli. This second official visit highlighted the House's unique dual heritage through formal audiences with both the Catholic Archbishop, His Grace Sevastianos Rossolatos, and the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan, His Eminence Dorotheos II. These meetings honoured the dynasty's intertwining Latin-Genoese and Byzantine roots on an island renowned for the harmonious coexistence of both faiths. The visit concluded with the Prince as the guest of honour at a historical presentation at the ancestral Damalas Mansion, cementing plans for renewed philanthropic and cultural patronage in the Cyclades.
Chivalric Prerogatives & International Relations
In a natural extension of this dynastic revival, the Prince has actively exercised his inherited Jus Patronatus and fons honorum. He formally revived the Order of the Hospital of Saint James in Andravida as a dynastic confraternity, resuming the Achaean Grand Mastership to direct the Order towards modern humanitarian works.
Expanding the House's international and spiritual footprint, His Royal Highness recently signed a historic covenant of perpetual amity with the Holy Orthodox Order of Saint George the Great Martyr in August 2026. Assuming the hereditary dignity of Royal Protector, the Prince extended the dynastic protection of the House over the Order, formally uniting the dynasty's ancient chivalric prerogatives with an active mission of humanitarian relief across the Christian East.