mother church
English edit
Etymology edit
From an association of spiritual comfort and hierarchy with familial relationships, probably originally as a calque of similar expressions in other languages, especially 2nd-century Latin mater ecclesia (“mother church”) and 12th-century Old French mere eglise (“mother church”).
Noun edit
mother church (plural mother churches)
- (Christianity) The Church regarded as nourishing and protecting its members.
- Catholics regard Mary as Mother of the Church but an all-male hierarchy as the Mother Church.
- (Christianity) A church with oversight over another or others, now especially a cathedral or metropolitan church.
- Coordinate term: daughter church
- Mothering Sunday arose from the custom of visiting mother churches at Mid-Lent, rather than the usual parish church.
- (Christianity) The original church of a denomination, regarded as having birthed the others.
- (Christianity) The original denomination or community of believers from which other denominations and communities of believers sprang.
- The Church of England is the mother church of Anglicans around the world.
- 1667, Matthew Poole, Dialogue between a Popish Priest & an English Protestant, page 35:
- Not Rome, but Ierusalem should be the Mother Church.
- 1908 February, P.T. Forsyth, Contemporary Review, page 159:
- Puritanism is the mother church of Western democracy.
Derived terms edit
References edit
- “mother church, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2002.
