A private letter from 1998 reveals that King Charles, then Prince of Wales, once viewed the Orthodox Church as the only Christian denomination untouched by “abhorrent political correctness.” This sentiment, expressed years before he became King and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, could be seen as a subtle critique of the church he was ultimately destined to lead.
According to The Times, the letter, marked “private and confidential,” was sent from Balmoral Castle to Dudley Poplack, an interior designer who worked with the royal family. After Poplack’s passing in 2005, the letter was later sold at auction by Lay’s Auctioneers in Penzance, Cornwall, fetching over £1,700.
Charles has long shown admiration for the Greek Orthodox Church, the faith into which his father, Prince Philip, was baptized. In the letter to Poplack, the then 49-year-old Prince wrote that as he grew older, he found himself increasingly drawn to the “great, timeless traditions of the Orthodox Church,” which he saw as uncorrupted by what he termed “abhorrent political correctness,” as reported by The Times.
At the time of Charles’s remarks, the Church of England had recently begun ordaining women priests, with the first ordinations occurring in 1994, although Charles never publicly opposed this shift. In 1998, the church had yet to permit the remarriage of divorced individuals with living former spouses, a change that would ultimately allow Charles to receive the Archbishop of Canterbury’s blessing for his marriage to Camilla in 2005.
The article also notes that Charles is said to have sought spiritual guidance from a Greek Orthodox priest, Archimandrite Ephraim, following a cancer diagnosis. Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the private correspondence.
Source: parapolitika.gr / Translated by: Konstantinos Menyktas
