Mihail Neamțu
Mihail Neamțu (Romanian pronunciation: [mihaˈil ˈne̯amtsu]; born 16 April 1978), is a Romanian writer, philosopher, theologian, and politician. He received a PhD in theology from King's College London and has written several books on politics, religion, and culture. A conservative, he was elected in the Chamber of Deputies in 2024 as a member of AUR.
On 23 June 2025, he published a photo on social media of Oana Țoiu, the newly nominated Minister of Foreign Affairs. This was considered an inappropriate action, as Neamțu had altered the photo in a misleading way.[1]
Life and career
Family and political awakenings
Born in 1978 in Făgăraș in Brașov County, 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.[2]
Education and academic career
Neamțu gradually developed a critical view of radical modernity, because he believes the latter divorces reason from faith, personal virtue and public legality, economic flourishing and civic duty, sex from love, and the visible from the invisible.[3]
Doctoral dissertation
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.[4]
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 His unpublished thesis looks at various points of theological convergence between the supporters of the Nicene Creed and the leaders of the Christian monastic movement in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 Nicene 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).[5][6]
Political views
Conservative libertarianism
As an affiliate researcher of various conservative NGOs and libertarian think-tanks, Neamțu has put together different projects, conferences, and workshops, dedicated to the question of individual liberty and the impact of the governmental action upon the free market and the civil society.[7] He is a Eurosceptic.[8]
Multiculturalism and immigration
Neamțu is against any type of multiculturalism or immigration and he identifies such things as left-wing politics. He was a critic of the Bucharest Mosque project.[9]
Political activity
The New Republic
Mihail Neamțu joined the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party in 1993.[10][11]
Work with the President of Romania
By mid-July 2012, Neamțu became actively involved in helping Traian Băsescu, former President of Romania, to prevent his impeachment.[12] Like Băsescu, he was also against the Bucharest Mosque.[9]
Alliance for the Union of Romanians
On 2 April 2024, at a podcast hosted by Neamțu, AUR leader George Simion announced that Neamțu would be a candidate for AUR in the 2024 European Parliament election in Romania.[13][14] Journalist Cristian Șuțu labeled Neamțu's political views as far-right.[15] In the 2024 Romanian parliamentary election on 1 December, Neamțu was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, with AUR becoming the largest party in both houses of parliament and assuming office on 21 December. In March 2025, after his name appeared on the list of people that have received money from the influencer Bogdan Peșchir, Neamțu used his X account to tell his critics "If I am a fan of Putin then your mother is a whore! Prove it is not so!"[16]
Controversies
Mihail Neamțu has publicly collaborated with Herbalife,[17] which was criticised by part of the Romanian press because the company is considered a pyramid scheme.[18]
As a theologian, Mihail Neamțu has on several occasions argued the incompatibility between Christianity and Legionarism.[19] In a 2015 article in România Liberă, Neamțu wrote:
Neither the martyr end of figures such as Valeriu Gafencu, killed by the Communists, exonerates the errors and horrors produced by the so-called "ethics of honour". Who can justify the shooting of Virgil Madgearu, Armand Calinescu or Nicolae Iorga? What about the suicide provocation of Petre Andrei, the scholar from Iasi who was merciless against fascism? No less serious is Codreanu's unconditional support for the Berlin-Rome axis? The furious hatred of parliamentarians and the democratic elite cannot be justified even by the anti-Legionary persecutions of the Carlist dictatorship.[20]
As a teenager, Neamțu published texts favourable to C.Z. Codreanu, leader of the Legionary Movement. Thus, in issue 11/47, p. 14 of 1994 of the Siberian magazine Puncte Cardinale, still a minor, Neamțu wrote the following:
"Let us ask ourselves then why these numerous "intellectuals", many of them journalists, historians or political analysts [...], cannot understand the Legion and its Captain? They cannot understand why the Iron Guard was first and foremost a spiritual movement, a school for the restoration of the Romanian soul, in which, as Codreanu said (listening to Christ's teaching, Mark 11, 23), 'he who believes without limits' enters and 'he who doubts' remains outside' "[21]
In a book published in 2010, Mihail Neamțu explained the sympathies betrayed by this article published at the age of 16, describing them as "childish paragraphs" and blaming them on "historical and sentimental ignorance", against the background of which he allowed himself to be influenced by discussions with former political prisoners in Arad in the context of a "crisis of values [and a] need for reference points for an entire generation formed after 1989". He disavowed those texts, stating that he had no argument for "equating the cultural excellence of the 1927 generation with its political choice" and that he was "not in tune with the endemic violence and racial policies of the 1940 Legionary government".[22]
Mihail Neamțu's teenage legionary sympathies returned to public attention with the launch of the ARD electoral alliance in November 2012 when he recited verses from the work of the poet Radu Gyr,[23] which led to the other ARD leaders distancing themselves from the symbolism Neamțu used in the campaign.[24] The Centre for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania issued a statement describing Mihail Neamțu's speech as ''scandalous, outrageous and against the law''.[25]
Electoral history
Mayor of Sector 3
| Election | Affiliation | First round | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | Percentage | Position | ||
| 2020 | PMP | 9,593 | 4th | |
References
- ^ https://www.antena3.ro/politica/derapaj-incalificabil-mihail-neamtu-o-ataca-pe-oana-toiu-cu-o-fotografie-trucata-grosolan-750354.html
- ^ 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) - ^ Bingaman, Brock; Nassif, Bradley (23 August 2012). The Philokalia: Exploring the Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality. Oup USA. ISBN 978-0195390278.
- ^ Neamtu, Mihail George (2007). The Nicene Christ and desert eschatology (PhD). London, UK: King's College London. OCLC 681156315.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Neamțu, Mihai (22 January 2016). "Lenin's Ghost: How Did Marxist Professors Create a New Wave of Political Leaders?". www.libertylawsite.org. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
- ^ "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.ro (in Romanian). 9 September 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
- ^ a b "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.
- ^ "Mihail Neamţu, preşedinte Noua Republică: "Stânga patronată de Mazăre și de Dragnea este o sfidare la adresa Europei"". 2 November 2012.
- ^ "Dupa ce s-a făcut de râs la Arad și București, controversatul traseist politic, Mihail Neamțu vrea deputat de Timiș". 18 November 2020.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Andrei Gheorghe & Mihail Neamtu Oameni si oameni. YouTube.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Ecopolitic, Redacția (3 April 2024). "Teologul Mihail Neamțu, pe lista AUR pentru europarlamentare". Ecopolitic.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Hurdea, Ioana (29 March 2025). "Derapaj cu injurături al președintelui Comisiei de Cultură din Parlament. Mesaje obscene către "focile progresiste"". www.aktual24.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 29 March 2025.
- ^ "Poți și tu!". prezi.com. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ "Enola Day: Cel mai mare liberal arădean nu mai este Gheorghe Falcă, ci Mihail Neamțu". specialarad.ro (in Romanian). 6 July 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ Omul are o natură coruptă din naștere și orice îmbunătățire a ordinii social-politice trebuie dublată de exigența unei tăieri-împrejur a inimii. Nu s-a petrecut asta cu liderii mișcării, nici când Codreanu l-a asasinat pe prefectul Manciu, nici când nicadorii l-au împușcat pe I.G. Duca, nici când decemvirii l-au ciopârțit pe Stelescu. Dimpotrivă. Criminalii au fost premiați cu decorația "crucea albă" de C.Z. Codreanu pentru asasinarea satanic-ritualică la 16 iulie 1936 a "trădătorului"...
- ^ "De ce este creștinismul incompatibil cu legionarismul?". 10 September 2015. Archived from the original on 13 September 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ "Căpitanul şi umbra lui". Observator Cultural (in Romanian). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ Neamțu, Mihail (2010). Zeitgeist: Tipare culturale și conflicte ideologice. București: Editura Curtea Veche. p. 122.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Centrul pentru Monitorizarea si Combaterea Antisemitismului despre discursul lui Mihail Neamtu: Scandalos, revoltător și împotriva legislației în vigoare/ Se face vinovat de incitare la extremism, de ignorare deliberată a antisemitismului promovat de legionari". www.hotnews.ro (in Romanian). 7 November 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2023.