http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/how-to-move-a-700-year-old-church.html#more-2929
How to move a 700-year-old church
By Spooky on June 2nd, 2008 Category: Events, Pics LIKE DISLIKE

Yeah, I thought so too, but apparently it’s possible.

It’s actually been done too, in October 2007, a German 
cathedral, first mentioned in documents in 1297, was 
moved using a huge trailer platform from its original 
emplacement by a mining company. The village it was 
built in 710 years ago was evacuated and was going 
to become a coal mining site, so, forced by German 
legislation, the contracting company had to spend 3 
million euro to move the church to another location.

At 19,6 meters high, 14,5 meters long and weighing 
750 tons, you can imagine it wasn’t an easy task 
for those involved. Thankfully, the church reached 
its new home in Martin Luther Square, in Borna, 
after a few days of traveling.

http://www.heuersdorf.de/English1.html
Heuersdorf memorial web site

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/steady-steady/2007/10/26/1192941282201.html
SydneyMorningHerald
October 26, 2007 - 7:30AM

A 700-year-old church began its slow journey to a 
new home on Thursday at two kmh, on a huge flatbed 
trailer, leaving behind an eastern German village 
being turned over to open-pit coal mining.

The Emmaus Church, first mentioned in historical 
documents in 1297, only reached the edge of its 
home village of Heuersdorf outside Leipzig on 
Thursday on its way to the town of Borna, 12 km 
away. It's expected to get there by October 31, 
after crossing railway lines and the rivers Pleisse 
and Wyhra.

The building is a village church from the Middle 
Ages in Romanesque style, made of stone with a 
steeply pitched roof and a small black tower atop 
the roofline. At 19.6 metres tall and 14.5 metres 
long, it weighs around 750 tonnes.

The church is scheduled to squeeze into Martin 
Luther Square in Borna on Reformation Day, when 
Lutherans traditionally remember 16th-Century 
church reformer Martin Luther.

The coal mining company Mibrag is paying three 
million euros ($4.75 million) to move the church 
after the regional legislature passed a law in 
2004 approving plans to dig up the village to 
mine 50 million tonnes of brown coal which will 
supply the electrical power station at Lippendorf 
near Leipzig.

Village authorities fought the destruction of the 
town for years, but lost in Germany's Constitutional 
Court in 2005. Most of the 320 residents have 
already been resettled.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gDn7kuiVUo
Video of arrival in Borna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYFYgr_qD3E&feature=related
The town's demolition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG2Oa_errk4&NR=1
Heuersdorf in April, 2011