Eugenio Lascorz

Eugenio Lascorz y Labastida (26 March 1886 – 1 June 1962) was a Spanish lawyer who claimed to be a descendant of the medieval Laskaris family, which had ruled the Byzantine Empire in Nicaea from 1204 to 1261. In 1917 he legally changed his paternal surname from Lascorz to Láscaris, alleging that the former was a Hispanicization of the latter. Later he began styling himself as Príncipe Eugenio Láscaris Comneno (Prince Eugene Laskaris Komnenos). As the supposed titular Emperor of Constantinople, Eugenio used the regnal name Eugene II Lascaris Comnenus. In addition to his royal and imperial claims, which he supported with fabricated and contradictory genealogies, Lascorz also claimed the titles "Prince Porphyrogenitus", Duke of Athens and Grand Master of the self-proclaimed "Sovereign and Imperial Order of Constantine the Great" (not to be confused with the Constantinian Order of Saint George) and the "Order of Saint Eugene of Trebizond".

In the 1920s, Lascorz established himself as a successful attorney in private practice in Zaragoza. He combined that legal career with historical and literary studies focused on Ancient and Byzantine Greece, publishing works of both fiction and non-fiction that explored what he regarded as the history of his ancestors. In 1923 he proclaimed himself to the Greek people as the legitimate heir to the throne of the historical Byzantine Empire and as claimant to the crown of the modern Kingdom of Greece.

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Lascorz served as a military judge in the Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco. Between 1939 and 1943, he served the new Francoist state as a judge under the terms of the Law of Political Responsibilities.