mother-churchとは 意味・読み方・使い方

名詞

mother church (複数形 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.

   Mothering Sunday arose from the custom of visiting mother churches at Mid-Lent, rather than the usual parish church.

   Coordinate term: daughter 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.
   • 1667, Matthew Poole, Dialogue between a Popish Priest & an English Protestant, p. 35:

     Not Rome, but Ierusalem should be the Mother Church.

   • 1908 February, P.T. Forsyth, Contemporary Review, p. 159:

     Puritanism is the mother church of Western democracy.

   The Church of England is the mother church of Anglicans around the world.

派生語

• mothering, Mothering Sunday

参照

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