The Collaborative International Dictionary
Church \Church\ (ch[^u]rch), n. [OE. chirche, chireche, cherche, Scot. kirk, from AS. circe, cyrice; akin to D. kerk, Icel. kirkja, Sw. kyrka, Dan. kirke, G. kirche, OHG. chirihha; all fr. Gr. kyriako`n the Lord's house, fr. kyriako`s concerning a master or lord, fr. ky`rios master, lord, fr. ky^ros power, might; akin to Skr. [,c][=u]ra hero, Zend. [,c]ura strong, OIr. caur, cur, hero. Cf. Kirk.]
A building set apart for Christian worship.
A Jewish or heathen temple. [Obs.]
--Acts xix. 37.A formally organized body of Christian believers worshiping together. ``When they had ordained them elders in every church.''
--Acts xiv. 23.A body of Christian believers, holding the same creed, observing the same rites, and acknowledging the same ecclesiastical authority; a denomination; as, the Roman Catholic church; the Presbyterian church.
The collective body of Christians.
Any body of worshipers; as, the Jewish church; the church of Brahm.
-
The aggregate of religious influences in a community; ecclesiastical influence, authority, etc.; as, to array the power of the church against some moral evil.
Remember that both church and state are properly the rulers of the people, only because they are their benefactors.
--Bulwer.Note: Church is often used in composition to denote something belonging or relating to the church; as, church authority; church history; church member; church music, etc.
Apostolic church. See under Apostolic.
Broad church. See Broad Church.
Catholic church or Universal church, the whole body of believers in Christ throughout the world.
Church of England, or English church, the Episcopal church established and endowed in England by law.
Church living, a benefice in an established church.
Church militant. See under Militant.
Church owl (Zo["o]l.), the white owl. See Barn owl.
Church rate, a tax levied on parishioners for the maintenance of the church and its services.
Church session. See under Session.
Church triumphant. See under Triumphant.
Church work, work on, or in behalf of, a church; the work of a particular church for the spread of religion.
Established church, the church maintained by the civil authority; a state church.
Wiktionary
n. A church that is officially recognized as a national institution by a government; in England it is the Church of England.
WordNet
n. the church that is recognized as the official church of a nation
Usage examples of "established church".
But Abner had absorbed one fundamental lesson on this trip: the established church must not be maneuvered into a position of danger by the backsliding of fools who were never truly saved in the first place.
Time out of mind, all good citizens of this district have delivered to me before the last day of December thirty pounds of choice tobacco to be handed over to the Rector of Wrentham as his salary for maintaining the Established Church in our district.
The Rector of Wrentham and his brethren represented the Established Church of Maryland.
What the Church offered was salvation, which could be reached only through the rituals of the established Church and by the permission and aid of its ordained priests.
Even an established church would not make people as religious under a democratic form of government as it would under any other.
The Kereits were Nestorian Christians, members of that heretical sect who believed that Christ was first and foremost a man, and who had been driven eastward into Asia in the early days of the established church.
As long as the Sisters remained separate from the established Church, Kassar had no power over her, and they both knew it.
While Magdalene was not the hotbed of Puritanism that some of its neighbors were, it was still liable to be tarred with the same brush in regards to its loyalty to the established church.
We are resolved to keep an established church, an established monarchy, an established aristocracy, and an established democracy, each in the degree it exists, and in no greater.