Carmen Iohannis

Carmen Georgeta Johannis (née Lăzurcă born 2 November 1960, latinized as Carmen Iohannis) is a Romanian teacher who served as First Lady of Romania from 2014 to 2025 as the wife of Klaus Iohannis.

Carmen Iohannis
Iohannis in 2023
First Lady of Romania
In role 21 December 2014 – 12 February 2025
President	Klaus Iohannis
Preceded by	Maria Băsescu
Succeeded by	Mirabela Grădinaru
Personal details
Born	Carmen Georgeta Lăzurcă (1960-11-02) 2 November 1960 (age 64) Sibiu, Romanian People's Republic
Nationality	Romanian[1]
Spouse	Klaus Iohannis ​ (m. 1989)​
Occupation	English teacher at Gheorghe Lazăr National College, Sibiu

Biography

Carmen is the descendant of a Romanian Greek-Catholic family from Sântu, a village near Reghin, in the neighbouring Mureș County. During the prohibition of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church by the communist authorities, Carmen attended surreptitious services officiated by Archpriest Pompeiu Onofreiu at his home in Șelarilor Street, services which were also attended by Klaus Iohannis.^[2][3]

Carmen and Klaus met while they were both students at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. Immediately after graduation, the two were assigned as teachers to Agnita and Sibiu. She was the reason Iohannis chose to stay in Romania when the rest of his family emigrated to Germany in the early 1990's. She is an ethnic Romanian, while her husband is an ethnic German of Transylvanian Saxon descent. They married in 1989.^[4][5]

Carmen is an English teacher at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College in Sibiu.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

In a ranking conducted by perfecte.ro, Carmen Iohannis was listed among the most stylish wives of world leaders, alongside Queen Letizia of Spain, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Queen Rania of Jordan.^[11]

Honours

Foreign honours

• Italy: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (5 October 2018)