Any person who can prove with documents that his/her ancestors (at least one of them) were Greek citizens has the right to stake claim at the Greek citizenship. Proving the Greek citizenship of an ancestor can sometimes be a tough procedure, since it requires obtaining certificates that prove the ancestor’s birth in Greece or the ancestor’s registration in the Greek Municipal Records. During the procedure of obtaining the necessary documents and certificates, a lawyer’s help can be crucial, since he/she has the access to all the necessary Records and Registration Offices.
After obtaining the necessary documents and certificates that prove an ancestor’s registration to the Greek Municipal Records, the interested person should then register to the Special Registry Office in Athens all the certificates of marriages and births that took place abroad and have not been registered in Greece. For example, if a grandfather (father of mother of the interested person) was born in Greece and was registered to the Greek Municipal Records, the interested person has to register also his/her mother’s birth and marriage abroad and also his/her birth abroad.
After gathering all the necessary documents, the interested person should appear before the Greek Embassy of his permanent residency and file an application with the presence of two Greek citizens as witnesses. The interested person should also file with his/her application all the relevant documents that he/she has gathered, i.e. birth certificate, marriage certificate of the applicant’s parents and their birth certificates (and also the grandparent’s if the parents were not born in Greece and so on), criminal record etc. All the documents must be translated from a Greek lawyer or the consulate.
All the documents are gathered and then forwarded to the Decentralized Authority of the place of the Greek ancestor’s origin, which eventually, after examining all the documents, issues a decision, according to which the interested person can be registered in the Municipality records and then get a Greek ID and passport.
Every person who is a Greek citizen can travel and work without any obstacles or restrictions within the European Union (EU). Male Greek citizens between the ages of 19 and 45 are required according to the law to join the military and serve for a time period of nine (9) months.
* Our office has extensive experience in immigration law and internatioanl law (residence permits, citizenship, naturalization, deportation, asylum applications, etc.). For more information or legal advice, please do not hesitate to contact us at 0030 2313 079293 or by email at info@siopi-law.gr*
Dafni I. Siopi
Attorney at Law, LLM
52 Tsimiski Str, Thessaloniki
T. +30 2313 079293, +30 6977 568673
E. info@siopi-law.gr, dsiopi@siopi-law.gr