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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.
[...] In the 1980s, Mr. Iordachescu was working at the Project Institute of Bucharest, a design and engineering center. Around that time Romania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, set about radically redesigning the center of the city, inspired by the architecture and the style of city planning he had seen on a visit to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
[...] Mr. Iordachescu came up with the idea of digging under the buildings and putting a reinforced concrete support beneath them; the structures could then be placed on tracks. After that, engineers would sever the foundations and use hydraulic levers and mechanical pulleys to move the buildings to their new locations. Foundations would be put in place at the other end to support the relocated structures.
When he had first raised the idea with colleagues, Mr. Iordachescu was told that it wasn’t possible, that the buildings would fall over. He persuaded some engineers to try, and received verbal permission from government officials — though no one was willing to give permission in writing, in case the experiment failed.
“I find what they did extraordinary,” Viorel Speteanu, the editor of the book “Eugeniu Iordachescu: A Savior of Architectural Monuments,” said in an interview. “The ideas flew around. The movements of these buildings, both churches and civil buildings, I think this is an extraordinary achievement, and I will never stop praising him for his accomplishment.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/obituaries/eugeniu-iordachescu-dead.html
(Score: 0, Troll) by SomeGuy on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:48AM (9 children)
Impressive feat. Too bad it was to save houses of child molestation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:25AM
There were probably a few that weren't. And for many people the church itself may hold important memories of part loved ones or special occasions.
Personally, I don't give a fuck about the churchs as churches, but I do believe old buildings that are not fundamentally flawed in their architecture should be saved so future generations may marvel at the ingenuity or talent of their predecessors, perhaps finding inspiration or even rediscovering an old technique that is no longer practiced. So much is lost every day to shortsighted individuals that anyone providing preservation of the past, good or bad, should be applauded.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:27AM (2 children)
The saved churches were orthodox ones.
In the Orthodox Christianity, priests can marry before being ordained [orthodoxanswers.org] and most actually are.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:32AM
It wasn't just Churches he saved either. He saved any 'landmark' buildings he could get permission to move that the regime didn't destroy before he could get a crew together to help relocate them. And keep in mind he wasn't apparently a religious man, just an appreciator of 'classical' architecture, the most illustrious of which is usually churches or government buildings due to funding and the import of aesthetic appeal to both groups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:16AM
A small correction: Orthodox priests *must* marry before ordination, as a matter fact, bachelor seminary students are formally told that they must get married within the 5 years of study otherwise they won't be ordained. Those who won't might join a monastery and be ordained as monk priests, but that's not easy.
Otherwise, one can graduate from a religious seminary as a layman, but that's uncommon for those who studied for priesthood.
(Score: 0, Informative) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:37AM
This is Romania - 2nd world, not 1st world. If you'd care to get a passport and travel to open up your mind, you'd realize how ridiculously ignorant your comment sounds. Having been to most of this world, I'll put Bucharest in perspective for you:
It's getting cleaned up and becoming more european, like Germany did and like Poland is doing. Fairly clean, cozy, cheap - like a bit like Prague. They're not religious over there, they don't really have alter boys. Adults go to church when they're down and lost in life. Whore houses and strip clubs on every corner, gypsies with dirt on their face highly concentrated in out of sight areas. The churches there are not like the catholic church. Gay people get bashed and killed and everyone looks the other way. Two guys walking down the street holding hands will be beaten up in an hour.
The men who become priests are not interested in fucking little boys. They don't have the glory and excess of Rome. They are poor, they are there for god, they are too old to be interested in sex. They're there for sadness and calm peace. Child molestation happens when an old dude walks up to a gypsy mom and gives her five dollars to fuck her 5yo son.
Do try to make that trip to the post office and get on a plane. To comment on a place without ever having been there - well that just makes you the kid who shat his pants yelling that it smells.
(Score: 2) by deimios on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:30AM (2 children)
You got it wrong, the child molesters are the catholic ones. The orthodox priests kill the nuns with exorcism: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2692892/Romanian-priest-jailed-killing-young-nun-CRUCIFIED-botched-exorcism-ritual.html [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:31PM
You need to read the full story. The woman was a schizophrenic who was engaging in self-harm which is why she was restrained, and it occurred in a relatively remote region of Romania where the closest thing to mental health care is an exorcism by a priest to drive out the evil spirits. There was a lot more coverage in Romania at the time, and unlike the Daily Mail's clickbait story it actually went into more detail of what happened.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:41PM
"Mommy, I want to learn how to science!"
"Oh, sweetie, you know you will burn in hell if you do that. The world is the way it is because GOD. Since you seem to have forgotten, I had better ram some more of my 2000 year old book in to your orifices."
They are ALL child molesters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:29AM
orthodox priests are allowed to get married.
so the proportion of pedophiles should be more or less the same as that in the regular population, since there's no prerequisite of deviant sexual behaviour (yes, I consider abstinence a form of deviant sexual behavior, since it's not normal, and I'm anonymous. pedophilness, or whatever the proper word is, I consider bad deviant sexual behaviour).