Mary does not have any special role within the Protestant church, and Protestants often crticize Catholicism for its veneration of Mary, who is almost as important as Jesus to some Catholics. It is somewhat ironic that Mary plays such a huge role in Catholicism given its stance against the ordination of women.
Protestants typically hold that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but was an ordinary woman devoted to God. Therefore, there are virtually no Marian veneration, Marian feasts, Marian pilgrimages, Marian art, Marian music or Marian spirituality in today's Protestant communities. Within these views, Roman Catholic beliefs and practices, which endured more than 1500 years after Jesus' death, are at times rejected as heresy, e.g. theologian Karl Barth wrote that "the heresy of the Catholic Church is its mariology."[34]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blessed_Virgin_Mary