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Ioan Petru Culianu was a historian of religions, Romanian writer and essayist who was born on January 5, 1950. He was born in Iasi, Romania. Ioan Petru Culianu was a visiting Professor of the history of religions at Chicago Divinity School.
He was born to Elena Bogdan and Sergiu-Andrei Culianu. Elena Bogdan was a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at UAIC and Sergiu-Andrei was a lawyer and professor.
It is worth noting that Ioan Petru Culianu had his primary, middle as well as high school education at the Vasile Alecsandri school.
Later in 1976, Ioan Petru Culianu had to relocate to Bucharest to attend the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. The relocation was quite a painful one for Ioan Petru Culianu but it made him tough and able to adapt to any situation and anywhere in the world.
He successfully graduated from the Italian section after working on the thesis, Marsilio Ficino and Platonism in the Renaissance.
It would be recounted that in July 1972, Ioan Petru Culianu received a scholarship for some summer courses in Perugia, Italy.
At that time, he was a member of the PCR. After completing the scholarship, he applied for political asylum and had an internship in a refugee camp located in Latina.
Through this experience, he suffered depression to the extent that he once tried to commit suicide. He had studies in the history of religions at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan between 1973 and 1976.
While at the University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Ioan Petru Culianu wrote a bachelor’s thesis on Gnosticism in his view, Hans Jonas under the guidance of Professor Ugo Bianchi.
Ioan Petru Culianu Cause of Death
It would be recalled that on May 21, 1991, Ioan Petru Culianu was shot dead in a restroom. He was shot in the head from behind at the University of Chicago by an unknown person.
Prior to the shooting that ended his life, Ioan Petru Culianu had in 1990 received death threat letters allegedly signed by the Sons of Avram Lancu.
As a result of the death threats, he stopped writing his column, Scoptofilia in the magazine, Lumea libera romaneasca in Romanian from New York.
The threats on the life of Ioan Petru Culianu intensified as a result of the publication of an interview he granted to Gabriela Adamesteanu in Revista 22 from April 5, 1991, as well as his visit to Chicago to see the former sovereign of Romania, King Mihal I and the royal family in April 1991.
Ioan Petru In Netherlands And US
He settled in Holland in 1976 and was there for 12 years. He got a job as a Romanian assistant and in 1986, he became an Associate Professor at Noomen’s Department of Romance Languages.
The period entailed twenty-six studies, four specialist books on religions as well as sixty-four articles and reviews.
He moved to the United States of America in 1986 as a visiting professor and later became a tenured professor at the Chicago Divinity School, an institution of the University of Chicago.
Reference :
https://ro.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioan_Petru_Culianu
