Church of Saint John the Baptist, Gothic church in Šumperk, Czech Republic

The Church of Saint John the Baptist is a single-nave brick building with a cross-shaped floor plan and a polygonal presbytery, rebuilt in Baroque style after the 1669 fire while retaining Gothic structures. A massive four-sided tower stands on the north side, topped by an onion dome with a lantern added in 1766. The south side has a Classicist sacristy and a covered arcade with 19th-century wall paintings of the Last Supper and Christ on the Mount of Olives.

Founded probably at the town's origins in the 13th century, the church burned in 1513 and again in 1669, when the town fire destroyed it. Reconstruction finished in 1688, giving it a Baroque form and a cross-shaped plan; the tower's onion dome dates from 1766 and the cemetery was abolished in 1784.

The church is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and its patron saint is Saint Theodore, whose relics were brought from Rome in 1760; according to legend, he saved a small boy's life during the ceremony. A plaque on the rectory commemorates Dean Kryštof Lautner, a victim of the 17th-century witch trials.

The church stands in the historic centre of Šumperk, next to the main square, within the town monument zone; the rectory and the 1768 statues of the evangelists stand close by. A two-armed covered staircase on the west side leads to the entrance doors. The cemetery that once surrounded the church was abolished in 1784 and its wall demolished in 1805.

The massive tower on the north side of the presbytery probably belonged to the town, which kept a watch there and stored valuables and important documents in it. Before the 1669 fire it was roofed with thirteen small turrets, and it is the best-preserved Gothic monument in Šumperk.