diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index f5298de9f7c..22c1a130f4a 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -693,7 +693,8 @@ set(ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_NEW_PASS_MANAGER TRUE CACHE BOOL
 
 include(HandleLLVMOptions)
 
-find_package(Python3 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Interpreter)
+find_package(Python3 ${LLVM_MINIMUM_PYTHON_VERSION} REQUIRED
+    COMPONENTS Interpreter)
 
 ######
 
diff --git a/cmake/modules/HandleLLVMOptions.cmake b/cmake/modules/HandleLLVMOptions.cmake
index 32fb4e10e31..2e088bd6e91 100644
--- a/cmake/modules/HandleLLVMOptions.cmake
+++ b/cmake/modules/HandleLLVMOptions.cmake
@@ -1176,3 +1176,11 @@ if(LLVM_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS_IN_FILES)
   append_if(SUPPORTS_FFILE_PREFIX_MAP "-ffile-prefix-map=${source_root}/=${LLVM_SOURCE_PREFIX}" CMAKE_C_FLAGS CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS)
   add_flag_if_supported("-no-canonical-prefixes" NO_CANONICAL_PREFIXES)
 endif()
+
+if(LLVM_INCLUDE_TESTS)
+  # Lit test suite requires at least python 3.6
+  set(LLVM_MINIMUM_PYTHON_VERSION 3.6)
+else()
+  # FIXME: it is unknown if this is the actual minimum bound
+  set(LLVM_MINIMUM_PYTHON_VERSION 3.0)
+endif()