Church of St John the Baptist, Byzantine Orthodox church in Kerch, Crimea

The Church of St John the Baptist in Kerch is built of light Kerch limestone with alternating courses of red clay brick, four rows of stone followed by four of brick to resist earthquakes. Its oldest part is a four-pillar cross-domed core with semicircular recesses, standing on marble columns with Corinthian capitals. A 19th-century chapel and belfry adjoin it, and 13th–14th-century murals survive inside.

The building was constructed between the 8th and 10th centuries during a period when Christianity was expanding across the region. An inscription carved into one of its columns suggests that parts of the structure date to the first half of the 8th century.

The church was not consecrated to John the Baptist until the late 18th or early 19th century; before that it bore another name. In 1634 the Dominican prefect Emiddio Dortelli D'Ascoli described it as a Greek church of Saint George with a dome on four marble columns encrusted with seashells. Since 1990 services have resumed after the Soviet period, when the building housed a gem museum.

The church is located in central Kerch and can be easily reached on foot from the main streets. Visitors should dress respectfully as it remains an active place of worship with regular services.

The church was used as a gem museum during the Soviet period, and services only resumed in 1990 after restoration work in the 1980s. A column inside carries a Greek inscription naming Kyriakos, son of George, grandson of Vindira, who died on 3 June in the year 6265 from Adam, read as 757 AD.