mother church

Meanings

1. The Church regarded as nourishing and protecting its members.
2. A church with oversight over another or others, now especially a cathedral or metropolitan church.
3. The original church of a denomination, regarded as having birthed the others.
4. The original denomination or community of believers from which other denominations and communities of believers sprang.

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”).