Saint Mary Church

The St.-Marien-Kirche in Boren stands in the rolling countryside of Angeln, a region in Schleswig-Flensburg. Built in the early 13th century, it is one of the purest examples of Romanesque brick architecture in the area. The church began as a single-nave building with a square choir and later received a Gothic porch at the north door. A late addition was a family vault for the owners of nearby Dänisch-Lindau estate, used until the estate was dissolved in 1784. In the 1930s and 1940s a major restoration removed Baroque fittings and returned the roof to its original timber ceiling. The work was led by Otto Schnittger and later continued by Carl Fey and Alwin Blaue.

The church contains several notable works. A granite font from the building’s first years holds a 1670 silver bowl. The late-medieval rood cross, once part of a Calvary group, was reinterpreted in 1944 as the Tree of Life. Two carved figures from this group, saved from decay in Flensburg museum, returned in 2017. A damaged 14th-century bishop statue, also restored in 2017, stands in the northern niche of the chancel arch. The altar is flanked by two lion-supported candlesticks taken as war booty from Meldorf cathedral in 1559. The present communion table dates from 1941, topped by a carved antependium and a modern crucifix.

Visitors enter through the late-Gothic porch and pass under the north portal into a single, lofty space. The dark interior is lit by coloured leaded glass showing the Virgin and Child and eleven apostles. A small hagioscope in the south wall of the choir allowed excluded worshippers to watch the Eucharist from outside. Beside the church stands a wooden bell frame built in 1693. The organ, built in 1997–98, occupies the west wall almost at floor level. Portraits of pastors line the choir, including Hans Nicolai Andreas Jensen, author of the first history of Angeln.