The term Mother Church has many meanings within Christianity. The principal definition in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is "The Church, esp. the Roman Catholic Church, considered as a mother in its functions of nourishing and protecting the believer". Other definitions include: "A church (as a parish church) which has responsibility for or oversight of another (as a chapel of ease, chantry, etc.)"; "The principal church of a country, region, or city; a cathedral or a metropolitan church"; "The original church of a particular Christian movement, serving as an organizational or spiritual centre; esp. the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts, that of the Christian Scientists"; and "The church (i.e. organized body of Christians) of which another church or denomination is an offshoot; (also) the oldest or original church from which all others have sprung".
Famous quotes containing the words mother and/or church:
“She isn’t harassed. She’s busy, and it’s glamorous to be busy. Indeed, the image of the on- the-go working mother is very like the glamorous image of the busy top executive. The scarcity of the working mother’s time seems like the scarcity of the top executive’s time.... The analogy between the busy working mother and the busy top executive obscures the wage gap between them at work, and their different amounts of backstage support at home.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man’s universe is the earth?”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)