BUCHAREST, Romania — Eugeniu Iordachescu, a Romanian civil engineer who helped save some of Bucharest’s most emblematic churches from destruction in the 1980s by literally rolling them to safety, died on Jan. 4 at his home in Bucharest. He was 89.

The cause was a heart attack, his son Nicholas said.

Over a six-year period, Mr. Iordachescu (his full name is pronounced ayoo-JAY-nyu yor-da-KES-cue) and his colleagues were able to save a dozen churches, as well as other buildings that were earmarked for destruction by the Communist regime; they often moved them hundreds of yards on the equivalent of railway tracks.

The churches still stand, though few visitors to the Romanian capital are aware of their unusual history.