Marienkirche, Gothic church in Freyburg, Germany

St. Marien is a late Romanesque basilica of limestone ashlars with three towers: a pair of west towers modelled on the east towers of Naumburg Cathedral and a squat crossing tower with a rhombic copper roof. The late Gothic hall nave, built shortly before 1500, has four rectangular bays and eight aisle bays carried by six octagonal piers. A three-sided open west porch, the "Paradies", holds the Romanesque tympanum of the enthroned Virgin and Child with angels, reinserted in 1940.

Construction began around 1220 under Landgrave Louis IV of Thuringia and his wife Elisabeth; dendrochronology dates key parts to 1225. In the early 15th century the Romanesque apse was replaced by the present Gothic choir, and the sacristy was added in the second quarter of the century. Around 1500 the nave was rebuilt as a late Gothic hall church, giving the building its present form.

The late-Gothic high altar from around 1500, with its carved wooden centrepiece showing the Coronation of Mary, and the 1592 baptismal font are the church's main furnishings. Numerous tomb monuments from the 16th and 17th centuries line the interior. The church lies on the southern route of the Straße der Romanik, the Romanesque Road.

The church stands southeast of Freyburg's rectangular market square, at the town's eastern edge, and lies on the southern route of the Straße der Romanik. The west porch, the so-called Paradise, opens onto the square through three large pointed arches on columns. The south porch bears the inscribed year 1493.

The south porch bears the inscription 1493, and the west tympanum, reinserted in 1940, shows the seated Virgin and Child flanked by angels with censers. A small stone figure in the south window of the crossing tower may have been carved to ward off demons.