San Juan Bautista Parish Church

San Juan Bautista Parish Church stands on a little hill in the centre of Lezo.

It was shared for many years with the municipality of Pasai Donibane (San Juan). Immediately the inhabitants of Pasaia were granted the authorisation to create their own parish church, around the mid-16th Century, they wanted to go ahead with construction, but didn't have enough money to do so, so that work wasn't started until the early 17th Century.

Construction work started on the church towards the north. It has two chapels with slightly pointed arches. In keeping with the Deed of Covenant, there are another two chapels to the south, one of which, closed in by a semicircular arch, serves as the entrance to the temple. We don't know if the door was built according to the proposed model -Usurbil Church- given that the latter no longer exists today; the version found in Lezo is a very small "chapelette" with a simple cross vault.

The church is spacious, with a single nave. The large exterior buttresses have interior prismatic pilasters with triangular bases as a result of joining the reed-like moulding supporting the different nerves of the vault; this is covered with a 15th Century style cross vault with undulating nerves and a pendant keystone. Some of the cross vaults have special decoration, the only ones of their kind in Gipuzkoa.

The Church is split into four parts, the first of which is the presbytery, reached by a large stairway. The main altarpiece has four levels and is crowned with a Calvary.

The building still has its Gothic gargoyles and, on the western doorway, the starting point of the older pointed arch over the modern door. Over the door is a splendid large Gothic window with tracery and two dividing mullions. Over the window on the south side we can see a double inflected arched moulding. A moulding featuring ball-like shapes decorates part of the south facade.

The pronounced exterior buttresses on the apse give the Church the appearance of a large fortress.