He was born in Bucharest into a family of intellectuals, and following high school, studied History at the University of Bucharest from 1955 to 1963. Between 1959 and 1961 he was excluded from the university by the communist authorities for political reasons, and worked as an unskilled labourer in this period. A cultural and art historian, he studied on a scholarship in France in 1968 and received a doctorate in history from the University of Bucharest in 1972. From 1963 to 1987, he was a researcher at the Romanian Academy's Institute of Art History, serving as adjunct research director from 1972 to 1977. He was removed from his leadership position after protesting against the demolition of the Enei Church in 1977, and in 1984-1985, initiated a collective protest against the demolition of the Văcăreşti Monastery. From 1987 to 1990 he was an associated professor at the Bucharest National University of Arts, where he became a professor in 1990, teaching courses on the history of old Romanian art, the typology of Eastern Christian art and on the history of European civilisation. He has held additional posts in his field, including within UNESCO. After the 1989 Revolution, Theodorescu headed the Romanian Television from 1990 to 1992 and was a member of the National Audiovisual Council from 1992 to 2000. The 2000 election brought the PSD into office and Theodorescu became senator and a cabinet minister. He was returned to the Senate at the 2004 election, which his party lost, and sat in opposition. He ran for a Bucharest seat at the 2008 election, but lost. Before his election in 2000 and the return of his friend Ion Iliescu as President of Romania, Theodorescu was a strong critic of the centre-right governments under Emil Constantinescu, at one point labelling the Radu Vasile cabinet "Stalinist, Stakhanovite, totalitarian". Once in office, he pledged to continue his predecessors' "very interesting" projects, with an increased emphasis on Romania's then-upcoming European Union accession. In the religious affairs field, he continued to attempt advances on the issue of property retrocession from the Romanian Orthodox Church to the Greek-Catholic Church, and supported building the Romanian People’s Salvation Cathedral in Carol Park. He also, in a step that was not without controversy at the time, admitted Romania's participation in the Holocaust, declaring that Romania has a responsibility toward those killed and their families, to acknowledge what happened, and to protect historic Jewish properties and cemeteries. In 1993, Theodorescu became a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy, rising to titular member in 2000. In 1990 he became a correspondent member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, and since 1998 belongs to the New York Academy of Sciences. He has received the chevalier and commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and since 2000 is a great officer of the Romanian National Order for Merit. He has received a number of other academic distinctions and memberships, as well as prizes and decorations, both at home and abroad.
