[2] Born at Prüfening Abbey in Regensburg, Bavaria, he was the eldest child of the then Hereditary Prince Frederick Christian of Saxony, later Margrave of Meissen, and Princess Elisabeth Helene of Thurn and Taxis.
He next had to escape from the approaching Soviets as his homeland, Saxony, became a part of communist East Germany as World War II wound down.
As Maria Emanuel fathered no legitimate children, he had acknowledged as his eventual heir Prince Alexander of Saxe-Gessaphe, the son of his eldest sister Princess Anna and her late husband Robert Afif, Prince of Gessaphe (or "Assaphe"/"Afif-Assaf", descendants of a Lebanese Christian family which ruled the Keserwan, a province in north of Beirut).
Therefore, if the Gessaphe claim is invalid, the succession would pass to the issue of the Margrave's paternal aunts, who were Margarete Karola (1900–1962), Maria Alix (1901–1990) and Anna (1903–1976), all of whom left children.
The Margrave's brother Albert, however, supported discarding equality requirements to allow his cousin Prince Timo of Saxony's morganatic son, Rüdiger (born 1953), to eventually succeed.