24 Facts About Demetrius Rhodocanakis

Demetrius Rhodocanakis was a London-based 19th-century Greek merchant, forger and pretender.

Demetrius' claim to represent Byzantine royalty rested on a claimed connection between the Rhodocanakis family and the ancient Byzantine Doukas family, as well as on one of his supposed ancestors, named Demetrius Rhodocanakis, having married a daughter of Theodore Paleologus, a possible descendant of the Palaiologos emperors.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis maintained his claims even after he had been widely discredited, and at some points succeeded in enforcing recognition.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis was born in Ermoupoli on the Greek island of Syros on 3 December 1840.

The Demetrius Rhodocanakis family were supposedly descendants of an early branch of the Doukids who governed the island of Rhodes.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis studied literary history and theology in Athens before attending the universities of London, Oxford and Heidelberg, studying theology and philosophy.

Thereafter, Demetrius Rhodocanakis worked as a merchant on his own, operating out of Ethelburga House on Bishopsgate Street in London.

In business and merchant contexts, Demetrius continued to style his name as Rhodokanachi, whereas the Latinized version Rhodocanakis was used in any context wherein he pretended to be a prince.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis' claims were collected and published by him in 1870 in London, under the title The Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George: a review of modern impostures and a sketch of its true history.

In 1871, Demetrius Rhodocanakis' claims were recognized by the papacy after an audience with Pope Pius IX.

At the time of his forgeries, Demetrius claimed that his father Ioannes, was the titular emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis claimed that his father was the rightful Grand Master of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, a chivalric order founded in the 16th century by the Angelo Flavio Comneno family, but which was claimed by them to have been founded in the 4th century by Constantine the Great.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis accepted the legendary and invented origin of the order, but not the genealogical claims of the Angelo Flavio Comneno family, and dismissed them as Italian pretenders and impostors, claiming that his lineage, supposedly deriving from the Palaiologos emperors, represented the true line of grand masters.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis was the last serious Byzantine forger and pretender until an explosion of Byzantine forgers in the later 20th century.

Demetrius was not successful in convincing all of his contemporaries and doubts were raised in 1872, when a biography he published on Constantine Rhodocanakis included a portrait of Constantine which was actually a portrait of the author himself, dressed in a costume.

In 1895, Emile Legrand, a reputed French hellenist and byzantinologist, accused Demetrius of inventing one of the books he had cited in his 1870 work, Historia Genealogica dell'Antichissima et Augustissima Casa Duca-Angelo-Comnena-Paleologa-Rhodocanakis, supposedly published in 1650 but in reality non-existent.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis' genealogy had been thoroughly discredited by the early 20th century.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis was undeterred by Legrand's 1895 accusations against him and continued to maintain his claims until his death.

Demetrius Rhodocanakis was the establisher of the Scottish Rite of freemasonry in Greece.

On 18 October 1869, Demetrius Rhodocanakis was initiated, passed and raised at St Andrew Lodge No 48 in Edinburgh.

Thereafter, Demetrius Rhodocanakis' was rapidly elevated in rank and was shortly after given a warrant to establish a Supreme Council in Greece.

On 14 September 1871, Demetrius Rhodocanakis left for Greece, arriving in Athens on 20 October after travelling through France and Italy.

The 41-year old Demetrius Rhodocanakis married a woman by the name of Despina Kanaris, only 18 years old.

On 16 June 1895, Demetrius Rhodocanakis married his second wife, Euthymia Samothrakis, in Ermoupoli on Syros.