mother church

English

Etymology

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

mother church (plural mother churches)

1. (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.

2. (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.

3. (Christianity) The original church of a denomination, regarded as having birthed the others.

   The mother church of Christian Scientists is in Boston, Massachusetts.

4. (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

• mothering, Mothering Sunday

References

• “mother church, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.