Jump to content

Mihail Neamțu

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mihail Neamțu
Neamțu in 2024
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office
21 December 2024
President of the New Republic Party
In office
29 January 2013 – 16 March 2015
Succeeded byAlin Bota
Personal details
Born
George-Mihail Neamțu

(1978-04-16) 16 April 1978 (age 47)
Făgăraș, Brașov County, Romania
Political partyAlliance for the Union of Romanians (since 2024)
Other political
affiliations		Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (1993–2012)
Right Romania Alliance (2012)
New Republic Party
(2013–2015)
National Liberal Party
(2017–2019)
People's Movement Party (2019–2022)
SpouseBeatrice Neamțu
Children3
OccupationTheologian,writer, politician
ReligionRomanian Orthodox
Academic background
EducationMoise Nicoară National College
Alma materBabeș-Bolyai University
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Durham University
King's College London
Academic work
DisciplinePolitics, History, Theology
InstitutionsIon Mincu University of Architecture and Urban Planning
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Websitemihailneamtu.org

George-Mihail Neamțu (Romanian pronunciation: [mihaˈil ˈne̯amtsu]; born 16 April 1978) is a Romanian theologian and politician who since 2024 has served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Born and raised in Transylvania, he has written several books on politics, religion, and culture. A conservative, Neamțu has also been involved in several political movements, most notably the New Republic party which he founded in 2011 and led until 2015, as well as the Alliance for the Union of Romanians for which he was elected in the 2024 parliamentary election.

His publications include Zeitgeist (2007), Bufnița din dărâmături (2008), Credință și rațiune (2013) and Iisus la Niceea (2022). He has been a regular contributor to the popular media, including Adevărul, Libertatea and Gândul. Neamțu has explained that he embraced conservatism after witnessing Socialist Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu as a child.

Early life

[edit]

Family background

[edit]

Mihail Neamțu was born on 16 April 1978 in the Transylvanian city of Făgăraș, Brașov County in the Socialist Republic of Romania. His mother, Emilia, was a school teacher and his father, Gheorghe, was a computer engineer. Neamțu also has a brother, who is a painter. Early on in his life, his paternal grandfather introduced him to Orthodox Christianity.[1]

Studies

[edit]

In 1996, Neamțu enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology at Babeș‑Bolyai University in Cluj‑Napoca, graduating with a BA in 2000.[2] During the 2000–2001 academic year, he was a Socrates exchange student at the German Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.[2]

Academic work

[edit]

Dissertations

[edit]

In 2002, Neamțu completed his Master of Arts research at Durham University, with his dissertation Theology and Language in St Gregory of Nyssa written under the supervision of Andrew Louth. The same year, he embarked on doctoral research at King's College London, where he worked with Colin Gunton and Oliver Davies.[3]

In 2008, Neamțu defended his doctoral dissertation at King's College London. His unpublished thesis looks at various points of theological convergence between the supporters of the Nicene Creed and the leaders of the Christian monastic movement in fourth-century Egypt. Neamțu claimed that the Church bishops gathered at Nicaea offered a paradoxical understanding of the consubstantial relationship between the Father and the Son, which subverted the Master and Slave dialectics so rampant in the pagan world (as it is described by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit).[4][5]

Work on orthodoxy and nationalism

[edit]

In his 2006 book Revisiting Orthodoxy and Nationalism, Neamțu maintains the universality of Eastern Orthodoxy, whereby its concerns are "infinitely broader than any national or ethnic project", while also being "real, incarnated, and spread out in the world, against the fickleness of our human nature" for which reason the Church often struggles with problems of national identity. Neamțu argues that by calling itself "Romanian", the Romanian Orthodox Church "is laying claim to a perfect match between religious and national identity that is not borne out by real life".[6][7] In the book, Neamțu also identifies Romanian cleric Nicolae Bălan's (1882–1955) emphasis on the relationship between the Church's founding and national diversity as pivotal for an ethnotheological interpretation of history.[8][9]

Neamțu writes that within modern nation states, the Orthodox Churches were confronted with the problems of confessional and ethnic alterity and theologically justifying their own relationship to the nation, with neither the Bible nor patristics offering a clear basis for justifing the Church's attachment to a particular ethnic identity.[8][10]

Study of Dumitru Stăniloae

[edit]

In 2012 research on the theology of Dumitru Stăniloae (1903–1993), Neamțu takes a position similar to that of his former professor Andrew Louth, writing that "Stăniloae's apologetics was shaped by confessional bias and rhetorical clichés", including "the reduction of Roman Catholic spirituality to mere legalism".[11][12] Neamțu notes Stăniloae's lasting heritage not as nationalism, but his "truly inspired" exegetical work on Scripture and the Church Fathers.[13]

Affiliations

[edit]

In addition to his academic work, Neamțu has been affiliated with the Acton Institute, contributing essays on political theology, ethics, and market economics.[14] His writings have appeared in various publications, both Romanian and international, on topics such as conservative thought, Christianity, and classical liberalism. In 2017, he was featured in an issue of Religion & Liberty, the Acton Institute's quarterly journal; the editorial highlighted his interview reflecting on the Russian Revolution and contemporary anti-corruption protests in Romania.[15]

Political views and activities

[edit]

Early politicial activity (1993–2017)

[edit]

Mihail Neamțu joined the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNȚCD) in 1993 aged 15.[16][17] In an article published in a Sibiu magazine in 1994, Neamțu wrote favourably of Romanian fascist politician Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938), praising the Iron Guard as "a spiritual school" for "the restoration of the Romanian soul".[18][19] In his 2007 book Zeitgeist, Neamțu renounces his comments as "infantile paragraphs" written from "historical and sentimental ignorance".[20] In 2003, Neamțu criticised the Bucharest Mosque project, rebuking it as an attempt by Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to segment influence in the country.[21] From 2010 until 15 September 2011, Neamțu served as scientific director at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile.[22] Until founding the New Republic party in October 2011, Neamțu remained only politically affiliated with PNȚCD, although he in 2012 said that he "being of the school of Corneliu Coposu and Ion Rațiu" did not "commit the sin of trailism" during his time in the party. On moving from the academic to the political field, Neamțu stated:[23]

[...] it was a great challenge to descend among the people, as an intellectual, and to discover that I was limited. Thus, I went from the luxury of journalistic reading to the risk of political commitment

— Mihail Neamțu, 2 November 2021

Mihail Neamțu protesting against Traian Băsescu's impeachment, 9 July 2012

By mid-July 2012, Neamțu had become actively involved in supporting incumbent presient Traian Băsescu, campaigning against his impeachment in 2012 Romanian presidential impeachment referendum held on 29 July of that year.[24] In the end, 88.7 per cent voted in favour of impeachment, with the vote failing to pass due to low turnout. During a event for the launch of the Right Romania Alliance (ARD) electoral alliance on 12 November 2012, Neamțu recited the poem Arise Gheorghe, Arise Ioan by Romanian facist poet Radu Gyr, which led other ARD leaders to distance themselves from Neamțu's remarks.[25] Neamțu defended himself, stating that his intention by reciting the poem had been to honour victims of the Nazi Holocaust and Soviet Gulags.[26]

In the 2012 parliamentary election on 9 December, he ran as an ARD candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in Arad County,[27] securing, with 30.2 percent of the vote, second place in the county’s first district, failing to be elected. The ARD was affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group.[28] On 16 March 2015, Neamțu resigned as chairman of the ARD, stating that he would remain a member. In a letter to party members, Neamțu stated among the reasons for his resignation that he would soon become a farther.[29] After this, he held a break from public life.[2]

Return to politics (2017–present)

[edit]

Following a successful citizens' initiative in late-2017 by Romanian NGO Coaliția pentru Familie, a referendum on the definition of family in the Romanian Constitution was held on in October 2018, during which Neamțu campaigned for changin the defintion of marrige to be between a man and a woman, whereby prohibiting same-sex marriage.[30] 93.4 per cent voted in favour of the change, but the referendum failed to pass due to low turnout. Two years later, in 2019, he joined the People's Movement Party, and had by 2021 become the party's spokesman.[2] In the 2020 local elections on 27 September, he unsuccessfully ran for the PMP as its mayor candidate in Bucharest's Sector 3, receiving 7.1 per cent of the vote.[2]

Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Neamțu condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin, stating in June of that year that he was "among those who did not take guidance either from Viktor Orbán or from Matteo Salvini".[31] Following the U.S. Supreme Court's overruling of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Neamțu participated in a TVR debate on the legality of abortion in Romania, describing its legalisation in 1990 following the Romanian Revolution as a "trivialisation of infanticide".[32][33]

Neamțu taking the oath of office on 21 December 2024

On 2 April 2024, Neamțu announced that he had joined the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) political party led and founded by former civic activist George Simion in 2019, for which he would run as a candidate in the 2024 European Parliament election in Romania as number 10 on the list.[34][35][36] Days later, Neamțu retracted negative statements he had made against Simion on 6 December 2020, the day of the 2020 parliamentary election, referring to his comments as "metal fog" caused by a severe COVID-19 infection. In July 2024, he expressed Eurosceptic sentiments.[37]

In June 2025, Neamțu received backlash for posting a photo of foreign minister Oana Țoiu edited in such a way to appear stupid.[38] In July of that year, following vice prime minister Dragoș Anastasiu resigning due to a corruption scandal, Neamțu commented that Romanian elites had "fused post-socialist cronyism with the language of Western virtue".[39]

Personal life

[edit]

On 18 October 2014, he married Adina Ioana Pleșa.[40] In 2015, Adina gave birth to a daughter. The couple divorced in February 2017. In 2021, Neamțu married Beatrice Bordianu, marking his third marriage. Beatrice gave birth to a son in 2024. On reconciling his views on marriage and family with his private life, Neamțu stated in a June 2022 interview that it was not he who had initiated the divorces.[31]

In 2021, Neamțu founded an online bookstore named Marilor Cărți ("Great Books").[2] He hosts the YouTube show Vocea Libertății ("Voice of Freedom").[2]

Selected publications

[edit]
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2007). Logos și persoană: încercare asupra originilor creștinismului. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Eikon. ISBN 978-973-757-265-3.
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2009). Grădina lui Epictet. Eseuri despre libertate. București: Humanitas. ISBN 978-973-50-2416-5.
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2011). Zeitgeist: tipare culturale și conflicte ideologice. Arad: Editura Gutenberg. ISBN 978-606-92183-4-9.
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2013). Republica de la Ploiești. Eseuri și intervenții. București: Curtea Veche Publishing. ISBN 978-606-588-634-4.
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2017). Fenomenul Trump și America profundă. București: Contra Mundum. ISBN 978-606-94640-3-6.
  • Neamțu, Mihail (2020). Visul României Mari: de la ideea națională la criza globalismului. București: Contra Mundum. ISBN 978-606-94640-7-4.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Neamțu, Mihail (2008). Bufnița din dărâmături. Insomnii teologice în România postcomunistă. Jassy: Polirom. ISBN 973-46-0959-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors (link)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Cirstea, Silvia (5 April 2024). "Cine este Mihail Neamțu. Află toate detaliile despre candidatul AUR la alegerile europarlamentare". Archived from the original on 1 August 2024. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  3. ^ Neamtu, Mihail George (2007). The Nicene Christ and desert eschatology (PhD). London, UK: King's College London. OCLC 681156315.
  4. ^ Pabst, Adrian (2009). Encounter between eastern orthodoxy and radical orthodoxy: Transfiguring the world through the Word. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6091-0. OCLC 326712764.
  5. ^ Louth, Andrew (2011). Meditations of the heart: The Psalms in early Christian thought and practice : essays in honour of Andrew Louth. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. ISBN 978-2-503-53433-6. OCLC 719415553.
  6. ^ Clark, Roland. Nationalism, Ethnotheology and Mysticism in Interwar Romania. 2009.
  7. ^ Mihail Neamțu, “Revisiting Orthodoxy and Nationalism,” Pro Ecclesia 15/2 (2006): 154, 157.
  8. ^ a b Patru, Marian. Das Ordnungsdenken im christlich-orthodoxen Raum. Nation, Religion und Politik Im öffentlichen Diskurs der Rumänisch-Orthodoxen Kirche Siebenbürgens in der Zwischenkriegszeit (1918–1940). 2022. P. 16 and 94-95
  9. ^ Mihail Neamțu (Between Gospel and Nation)
  10. ^ Mihail Neamțu, Revisiting Orthodoxy and Nationalism, in: Pro Ecclesia, 2/2006, pp. 155–156
  11. ^ Apintiliesei, Ciprian Costin (2022). Tendances Et Directions Dans Les Recherches Actuelles Des Théologiens Orthodoxes Roumains De La Diaspora. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. p. 224. ISBN 9782204153713.
  12. ^ Neamțu, Mihail (2012). Bingaman, Brock; Nassif, Bradley (eds.). Chapter 4: Conversing with the World by Commenting on the Fathers: Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae and the Romanian Edition of the Philokalia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 69.
  13. ^ Mihail Neamțu, “Between the Gospel and the Nation,” 17; Bria, Teologia ortodoxă, 52.
  14. ^ Member, Acton Staff. "Mihail Neamțu". Acton Institute. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  15. ^ https://www.acton.org/sites/default/files/issue-pdf/RL_27-2_Web.pdf
  16. ^ "Mihail Neamțu, președinte Noua Republică: "Stânga patronată de Mazăre și de Dragnea este o sfidare la adresa Europei"". 2 November 2012.
  17. ^ "Dupa ce s-a făcut de râs la Arad și București, controversatul traseist politic, Mihail Neamțu vrea deputat de Timiș". 18 November 2020.
  18. ^ "De ce este creștinismul incompatibil cu legionarismul?". 10 September 2015. Archived from the original on 13 September 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  19. ^ "Căpitanul și umbra lui". Observator Cultural (in Romanian). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  20. ^ Neamțu, Mihail. Zeitgeist: Tipare Culturale și Conflicte Ideologice. Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2010. p. 122
  21. ^ "Mihail Neamțu, după atentatul de la Londra. Marea moschee comandată de Erdogan în mijlocul Bucureștiului trebuie să fie un proiect mort și îngropat". www.nasul.tv (in Romanian). 23 March 2003. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  22. ^ "Mihail Neamțu vrea să înființeze un partid și să obțină un mandat de deputat". Mediafax. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  23. ^ Zachmann, Sebastian (2 November 2012). "Mihail Neamțu, președinte Noua Republică: „Stânga patronată de Mazăre și de Dragnea este o sfidare la adresa Europei"". Adevărul. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  24. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Andrei Gheorghe & Mihail Neamtu Oameni si oameni. YouTube.
  25. ^ Gandul.info (12 November 2012). "Reacția ARD la scandalul "Neamțu-legionar". MRU: "Nu doar că ne delimităm, condamnăm orice manifestare de extremism și intoleranță"". Gândul (in Romanian). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  26. ^ Gandul.info (12 November 2012). "Legionar sau ignorant? Co-președintele ARD, Mihail Neamțu, acuzat oficial de incitare la extremism: "Sunt doar eclectic în stil"". Gândul (in Romanian). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
  27. ^ "Mihail Neamțu: Voi candida pentru Camera Deputaților într-un colegiu din Arad". Adevărul. 17 September 2012. Archived from the original on 2 August 2025. Retrieved 2 August 2025.
  28. ^ "Arad: Mihail Neamțu, pe locul doi cu 30,2 %, candidatul USL Flavius Măduța a obținut 51,7% – rezultate parțiale BEJ". Mediafax. Archived from the original on 30 September 2022. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
  29. ^ Boghiceanu, Alina (16 March 2015). "Mihail Neamțu a demisionat din funcția de președinte al Noii Republici: Sunt astăzi soț și viitor tată". Adevărul. Archived from the original on 24 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  30. ^ Petrescu, Ana (7 October 2018). "Mihail Neamțu îi îndeamnă pe cetățeni, din biserică și îmbrăcat în straie de cântăreț la strană, să meargă să voteze la Referendum: Vin din viitor și viitorul nu arată foarte bine". Mediafax. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  31. ^ a b Sibii, Răzvan (27 June 2022). "10 întrebări politice și personale cu Mihai Neamțu: „Nu am puterea să zic cuiva «Îți este interzis să faci avort» și nu aș vota pentru asta. Sunt însă pro-viață"". Libertatea. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  32. ^ Grădinaru, Magda (17 July 2022). "Este politica privind accesul la avort o dezbatere pentru România? Nișa lui Mihail Neamțu". Spotmedia.ro. Archived from the original on 18 July 2022. Retrieved 18 July 2022.
  33. ^ "Mihail Neamțu: Dacă n-am fi banalizat avortul, România ar fi arătat diferit". Tribuna Românească. 12 July 2022. Archived from the original on 13 July 2022. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  34. ^ Hurdea, Ioana (3 April 2024). "Mihail Neamțu a prins până la urmă loc pe lista AUR la europarlamentare. Papahagi: "M-a mințit cu seninătate, iată cum s-a stricat amiciția noastră"". www.aktual24.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 13 May 2024.
  35. ^ Ecopolitic, Redacția (3 April 2024). "Teologul Mihail Neamțu, pe lista AUR pentru europarlamentare". Ecopolitic.
  36. ^ Șuțu, Cristian (9 May 2024). "Candidații lui Simion vor salariile grase de la Bruxelles, dar își declară ura față de UE: "Nu îi dau 10 ani. Va colapsa"". Digi24 (in Romanian). Retrieved 13 May 2024.
  37. ^ "Mihai Neamțu, reacție la rezoluția PE: România urmează să fie sancționată de UE pentru că-și dorește ca orice copil să aibă o mamă și un tată…Tovarăși: chiar ne luați de proști?". R3media. 19 July 2024. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  38. ^ https://www.antena3.ro/politica/derapaj-incalificabil-mihail-neamtu-o-ataca-pe-oana-toiu-cu-o-fotografie-trucata-grosolan-750354.html
  39. ^ Deconinck, Carl (29 July 2025). "Romanian Vice PM resigns after being named in corruption case". Brussels Signal. Archived from the original on 1 August 2025. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  40. ^ Murgoci, Anca (22 October 2014). "Mihail Neamțu s-a căsătorit". DC News. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mihail_Neamțu&oldid=1303870581"