BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's Orthodox Church says Eugeniu Iordachescu, a civil engineer who saved 12 churches and other historic buildings that were once slated for demolition by the country's leader, has died at 89.

The basilica.ro website reported that Iordachescu died Friday.

From 1982 to 1988, thousands of buildings were razed in the heart of Bucharest, the capital, to make way for a plan by then-Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu to build a giant House of the People and Soviet-style apartment buildings. The urban redesign was inspired during a 1971 visit to North Korea.

Iordachescu devised a radical system to place whole buildings on the equivalent of railway tracks and roll them hundreds of meters (yards) away to save them from destruction.

In 2016, the church awarded him the "Patriarchal Cross," its highest honor for laypeople.