Iasi is an old city, settled on 7 hills, bathe by the Bahlui river, having its first center around the nowadays’ Palace of Culture. Being established on „Drumul cel Mare al Moldovei” (The main road of Moldavia, literally translated as "The Great Road of Moldavia"), road which was commercially linking the Byzantine Empire to Cracovia (Krakow) and Lemberg, Iaşi was a very important point of goods exchange but also a border point. There are documents already from the XIV century about the old „Iaski-torg", which was a commercial and handicraft center, developed and divided in markets for goods sales, called fairs (bargain-markets), among which we can mention the „Târgul de Sus sau Măji” (of the fishermen), situated north-east of the previous center of the city, near the Monastery Dancu, demolished today.   

        During the reign of Constantin Movilă, in the year of 1610, somewhere in this „Târg de Sus" (Măji), the build of a wooden church begins, and on its place, between 1626—1629, the king Miron Barnovschi, at the insistence of his mother, begins the construction, from rock, of the present church „Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul”, which he "continues from the edge of the top windows" following to be completed and finalised by Hospodar Vasile Lupu, at November 9th, 1635 , when it is also blessed, as the marble plate on top of the southern door of the church porch states: „...I, Miron Barnovschi Hospodar, leader of Moldavia; and never finish it, I, Vasile Hospodar, leader of Moldavia, finish it , from the edge of the windows all..., in the year of 7143 (1635), month of November, in 9 days”. Today, the church „Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul" is situated in Iasi, on the street I. C, Brătianu, no. 14. From an architectonic point of view, the church presents resemblances of external decoration and dividing of the interior space with other churches that were build during the reigning of Miron Barnovschi, church Barnovschi from Iaşi - 1627 and church Bârnova - 1629. The church is a construction on rectangular plan, with the side apses of the nave in a semi-circle in the interior and right-angled at the exterior.

 The walls, from bricks and rocks have a thickness of 1,70 m, the roof is in an angled framework covered with zinc-covered iron-sheet. The cornice is sustained by rock consoles, simple, without profiles. All around, the exterior walls of the church, in the altar, the nave and pronaos, the walls are decorated with two rows of blind holes (for decorative purposes). One row of 45 small blind holes with 12 entrenchments fixed from place to place between the holes arranged under the cornice's consoles and a second row of 28 slight bigger blind holes, at the level and close to the size of the windows from nave and pronaos; 10 of them, from the altar, go down all the way to the concrete foundation. Other five holes, blind, big and apparent, with different sizes, are decorating the exterior walls of the steeple and of the porch added in the year of 1875. The steeple is build on top of the porch, on a square plan, in the extension of the church's axis toward west, near the pronaos. It is disposed with two levels (floors), the main chamber being intended to the fortified defence system, with sentinel roads and battlements, which continues toward the altar near the church wall, from the arch level in the pronaos, nave and altar to the roof. The second floor, on top of the fortified room, is designated to the steeple.  

 The access toward the two rooms is by climbing some rock stairs that start from an interior door placed in the north-east wall of the pronaos. The entrance to the church is through the south-west side, through a metallic door to the porch added in 1875, and from here through another metallic door to the main porch following that from here, through another metallic door, to the right in the pronaos. The interior of the church is enlighten through the 13 metallic-frame windows available in the walls. The windows are located as follows: 4 big windows at the tower, 2 windows at the added porch, 2 at the main porch, 2 at the pronaos, 2 at the nave and one in the altar. The church has at the interior the following rooms: one added porch in 1875 in the south-west side; the main porch with the steeple on top of it; the pronaos; the nave and the altar. The concave arches of the chambers are in the shape of simple semi-sphere calottes, supported on pendentives and arches directly on the side walls, enforced by the 3 square engaged pilasters, which form apparently a thickness of the wall in their direction. The dividing wall between the pronaos and the nave was eliminated.  The trelliswork mast was also removed, added later, on top of the entry door of the pronaos, on the interior wall of the west side. To enlarge the interior space, in the walls, in the porch for example, in the northern wall there is a niche, with a size of a rectangular door, with a semi-circle in the top part. Now, the space is closed with a door and used. In pronaos there are two apparent blind holes (for decorative purposes), with the same size as the windows, and another two, in the nave, aligned with the so-called funeral chamber of the voivodal churches.  

 In the nave, the space is also enlarged by the two big apses, semi-circular at the interior and rectangular at the exterior because of the engaged pilasters. On the northern wall of the nave, near the apse, the pulpit is situated. In the altar the space enlarges through the two big niches from the base of the apse. In the semi-circular wall of the apse there are another 3 small niches, one under the window and two on the sides. From the mural painting made in tempera paint which consisted of only few scenes drawn by an anonymous painter while the church was being radically restored in 1913, on the pendentives and on the calotte's hemispheres, being deteriorated and dull, we have kept only the face of the Holy Virgin, the gracious from the pronaos' calotte. The catapetasma is made from lime tree wood, sculptured with varied ornaments and the icons, painted in oil, in neo-byzantine style, some of them dating the XVII century. Among the valuable cultural objects the church still has, we can remember: a silver chalice with floral ornaments and applied medallions dating the XVII century, a Holy Gospel locked in silver and printed in Greek in 1693, an icon of Issus and another icon with his Mother on the catapetasma and in the porch the icon of Sfântului Ioan Botezătorul.

 The church yard has a parcel of approximately 400 square meters surrounded by an old iron fence, grounded in concrete in the northern and eastern parts and a smaller new fence, not grounded in concrete, recently build with the main gate, the doors and the frames of the church's windows, in the southern and western side. On the eastern side, outside, near to the altar, there is the grave, with marble base and cross, of the founders of the dependencies visible in the yard, Vasile Rusovici, born September 8th, 1849 and deceased July 27th, 1923 and of his wife, Maria Rusovici, born May 1st, 1857 and deceased April 24th, 1930.

 They donated to the church 3 houses: one situated on the south-western part, made from bricks and covered with iron sheets, donated in 1927 by Maria Rusovici, and another one, donated in 1928 by the same benefactress and a 3rd one situated in the north-western part,made from bricks and covered with gutter tiles,

 which was build by Vasile Rusovici in 1919 and where had functioned for a while, between 1929 and 1947, The School of Church singers of the diocesan center of Iasi. To be available for the cultural activity, after some deteriorations and earthquakes,  

 the church undertook some restoration work, consolidation and maintenance in the following years: 1854, 1873, 1913, 1942, 1965, and finally between the years 1984-1986, after the earthquake from March 4th, 1977.

 The inscription - recently fixed in place - above the southern door entry, states this: "With the allowance of the Father, the help of the Son and the achievement of the Holly Spirit, through the help and persuasion of the I. P. S. Teoctist Arăpaş, Archbishop of Iaşi and Bishop of Moldavia and Suceava, this monument-church that holds the name of "Sf Ioan Botezatorul" has been restored, in the year of 1984-1986 from Christos. The building was started by Miron Barnovschi, continued from the windows up by Hospodar Vasile Lupu, finished on November 9th, 1635, after only one year from his naming as leader of Wallachia (Moldavia)”.

 All the work was done by public contribution, with the help of the Saint Metropolitan Church and the effort of the regretted vicar Hadârcă Dumitru - administrative counsellor. Therefore: for the needed materials and transportation, the amount of 334.509 lei was used; for the manual labour the amount of 689.264 lei was used; at a total of 1.023.773 lei, from which: 639.300 lei were donated by the Mitropolitan Church and 393.173 lei, the contribution of the people. Newly "dressed", the church „Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul” - historic monument - was given back to the public use on the day of July 8th, 1987, on the same day as the celebration of „Saint Trinity”, after performing the dedicating ceremony and the Saint Liturgy of the church by P.S Pimen Suceveanul, back then Bishop-vicar of the Moldavian and Bucovinean Metropolitan Church, today I.P.S. Archbishop of Suceva and Rădăuţi Archiepiscopate, surrounded by P. C. Archimandrite Partenie Apetri, Big ecclesiarch of the Mitropolitan Cathedralal, P. C. Vicar-priest Hadârcă Dumitru - Administrative counsellor, P. C. Priest Dimitrie Isopescu, Administrative counsellor and a various range of priests and deacons.