Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia

In December 2013, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna visited the United States at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which received her with full honours and recognition as head of the Russian Imperial House. On 17 July 2018 she participated in the liturgical commemoration of the centenary of the assassinations of Saints Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their children conducted in Yekaterinburg by Patriarch Kirill I.

Subsequently, the official March 2013 recognition of her claim by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, seems to have drawn further supporters. In an interview, he firmly rejected the claims of the other Romanov descendants and stated: "Today, none of those persons who are descendants of the Romanovs are claimants to the Russian throne. But in the person of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and her son, George, the succession of the Romanovs is preserved — no longer to the Russian Imperial throne, but to history itself." (Сегодня никто из лиц, принадлежащих к потомкам Романовых, не претендует на Российский престол. Но в лице Великой княгини Марии Владимировны и ее сына Георгия сохраняется преемственность Романовых — уже не на Российском императорском престоле, а просто в истории).

In 2003, Kirill I Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia stated in a congratulatory message on Maria Vladimirovna's 55th birthday, “you are the embodiment of a Russian Grand Duchess: noble, wise, compassionate, and consumed with a genuine love for Russia. Though you may reside far from Russia, you continue to take an active part in its life, rejoicing when there are triumphs and empathizing when there are trials. It is deeply gratifying to know that, even in these new historical circumstances, you are making a significant contribution to the building of Russia’s global standing on the basis of spiritual and moral values, and the centuries-old traditions of the Russian people. The Russian Orthodox Church remains the preserver of the historical memory of the Russian people, and supports, as it has traditionally, the warmest possible relations with the Russian Imperial House.”

In 2002, Maria became frustrated with the internal strife within the Russian monarchist movement. When representatives of the Union of Descendants of Noble Families, one of two rival nobility associations (the other, older one being the Assembly of the Russian Nobility) were discovered to be distributing chivalric titles and awards of the Order of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, without her approval, she published a relatively strongly worded disclaimer.

When Vladimir Kirillovich died on 21 April 1992, his daughter Maria claimed to succeed him as head of the Russian Imperial Family on the grounds that she was the only child of the last male dynast of the Imperial house according to the Romanovs' Pauline laws. Although the charter of the Romanov Family Association (RFA), which represents other descendants of the Romanov family, asserts the premise that Russia's form of government should be determined democratically and that therefore the Association and its members undertake to adopt no position on any claims to the Imperial throne, its two most recent presidents have personally opposed Maria's claims: Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia, who maintained his own claims to dynastic status and to headship of the Romanov family, stated, "Strictly applying the Pauline Laws as amended in 1911 to all marriages of Equal Rank, the situation is very clear. At the present time, not one of the Emperors or Grand Dukes of Russia has left living descendants with unchallengeable rights to the Throne of Russia." His younger brother, Prince Dimitri Romanov, said of Maria's assumption of titles, including "de jure Empress of all the Russias", that "It seems that there are no limits to this charade". The supporters of Maria Vladimirovna point to the fact that neither Nicholas nor his brother Dimitri had any dynastic claims due to the morganatic marriage of their parents.

Following the discovery of the remains of Emperor Nicholas II and most of his immediate family in 1991, Maria Vladimirovna wrote to President Boris Yeltsin regarding the burial of the remains, saying of her Romanov cousins, whom she does not recognise as members of the Imperial House (including the grandchildren of Nicholas II's sister Grand Duchess Xenia), that they "do not have the slightest right to speak their mind and wishes on this question. They can only go and pray at the grave, as can any other Russian, who so wishes". At the behest of the Russian Orthodox Church, Maria did not recognise the authenticity of the remains and declined to attend the reburial ceremony in 1998. She has also said, regarding some of her Romanov cousins, that "My feeling about them is that now that something important is happening in Russia, they suddenly have awakened and said, 'Ah ha! There might be something to gain out of this.' "

The couple separated in 1982, a year after the birth of their only child, George Mikhailovich, who had been granted the title Grand Duke of Russia at birth by his grandfather Vladimir. Following the divorce on 19 June 1985, Franz Wilhelm reverted to his Prussian name and style.

In Madrid on 22 September 1976, Maria married Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, her third cousin once removed. He is a Hohenzollern great-grandson of Germany's last emperor Wilhelm II and a great-great-great grandchild of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom. Franz Wilhelm converted to the Orthodox faith prior to the wedding, taking the name Michael Pavlovich and receiving the title of a Grand Duke of Russia from Maria's father.

On 23 December 1969, upon reaching her dynastic majority, Maria swore an oath of loyalty to her father, to Russia, and to uphold the Fundamental Laws of Russia which governed succession to the defunct throne. At the same time, her father issued a controversial decree recognising her as heiress presumptive and declaring that, in the event he predeceased other dynastic Romanov males, then Maria would become the "Curatrix of the Imperial Throne" until the death of the last male dynast. This has been viewed as an attempt by her father to ensure the succession remained in his branch of the imperial family, while the heads of the other branches of the imperial family, the Princes Vsevolod Ioannovich of the Konstantinovichi, Roman Petrovich of the Nikolaevichi and Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of the Mihailovichi declared that her father's actions were illegal. As it happened, Vladimir Kirillovich, who died in 1992, outlived all the other male Romanov dynasts, and his daughter had no occasion to assume curatorship.

Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia (Russian: Мари́я Влади́мировна Рома́нова ; born 23 December 1953 in Madrid) has been a claimant to the headship of the Imperial Family of Russia (who reigned as Emperors and Autocrats of All the Russias from 1613 to 1917) since 1992. Although she has used Grand Duchess of Russia as her title of pretence with the style Imperial Highness throughout her life, her right to do so is disputed. She is a great-great-granddaughter in the male line of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

In 1911, when a member of Maria Vladimirovna's mother's family, Prince Konstantin Alexandrovich Bagration-Mukhransky (who belonged to the House of Bagration that reigned as kings in Georgia until annexation by the Russian Empire in the 1800s) married Princess Tatiana Constantinovna of Russia, Nicholas II required that she renounce her rights to the Imperial Throne. Yet by the time Maria's parents wed in 1948, the Romanovs had joined the Bagrations as a deposed dynasty, and it was post-Soviet Georgia's primate of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, who called for restoration of the Georgian monarchy as recently as 2007, engaging political and public interest in the dynastic prospects of Maria Vladimirovna's first cousin, Prince David Bagration-Moukhransky, who claims headship of the senior branch of the House of Bagration.