Duke of Sparta

Its legal status was exceptional, as the Constitution of Greece forbade the award or acceptance of titles of nobility for Greek citizens.

[1] As a result, on the day of the Crown Prince's baptism on 22 August/3 September, at the initiative of the Prime Minister Dimitrios Voulgaris,[1] his father, King George I, issued a decree according to which Constantine, as well as any future heir to the Greek crown, would bear the title "Duke of Sparta".

[4] However, Crown Prince Constantine was known as "HRH The Duke of Sparta" on the international scene from his birth until his accession in 1913—for 45 years.

This again led to the misunderstanding of various, quite respectable publications that the title "Duke of Sparta" was synonymous with that of "Crown Prince of Greece", and the title has thus re-surfaced from time to time, but neither of the successive Crown Princes of Greece have ever been officially styled thus.

The term Diadochos (literally, "heir"), which is a functional description and does not have any connotations of a title of nobility, has been historically employed to denote the position of heir-apparent in general—not limited to the Greek throne—instead.