Magnificent churches dating back to the 16th century were rolled out of the destructive path of a Romanian dictator to be hidden.
From the outside, the Mihai Vodă monastery looks like a fortress, while on the inside one of Bucharest's oldest churches is a riot of Christian iconography splashed on the walls and ceilings in reds and greens.
At the beginning of the 1980s those who worshipped in the Byzantine marvel were full of justified fear that it would fall short of reaching its 400th birthday in 1994.
