churchal

English

Etymology

From church +‎ -al.

Adjective

churchal (comparative more churchal, superlative most churchal)

1. Of or relating to a church.
   • 1872, J[oseph] O[sgood] Barrett, The Spiritual Pilgrim: A Biography of James M[artin] Peebles, 3rd edition, Boston, Mass.: William White and Company, […], pages 46, 91, and 229:

     A few, more churchal, trembled, fearful that the devil was playing his tricks upon them; […] When we had inspected each other,—he with a sort of careless sociability, we with a coy and very churchal questioning,—he said, when alone, to test the heart-blending, “Bro. Barrett, I see your inner life and struggles, the drift of your love, and impending fate as a Universalist minister. […]” […] In the mean while, the prime actors, noticing the great meeting in the churchal and spiritual presses, received responsive letters from eminent divines of the Unitarian sect,—such as David Wasson, Drs. Ellis, Livermore, Clarke, Bellows, E. C. Towne; […] Next to him come the moolahs and muftis, corresponding to churchal bishops, and then the ulemas, who are their priests.

   • 1881, Eugene Crowell, The Identity of Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism, 2nd edition, volume II, New York, N.Y.: […] the Office of “The Two Worlds”, page 127:

     That it was a spirit, is quite certain, because sprits have done such things in innumerable instances, and are now doing them daily, and that it was not the Holy Ghost, according to the churchal definition, is also nearly certain, for the reason that we have never had any knowledge that such an incomprehensible agency exists, and we cannot conceive how it can exist, while we do know that there are spirits, and that every man is influenced and impressed by them.

   • 1890, W[illiam] J[oseph] Simmonite, W. J. Simmonite’s Complete Arcana of Astral Philosophy, or the Celestial Philosopher, Being Genethliology Simplified, or the Doctrine of Nativities, to Which Is Added the Ruling of the Microcosm, London, page 136:

     […] the bodies of persons who thus die will not have a churchal interment, but will be devoured by beasts and birds; […]

   • 1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC, part III, page 587:

     […] his standpoint was, to belt and blucher him afore the hole pleading churchal and submarine bar yonder but he made no class at all in port and cemented palships between our trucers, being a refugee, didn’t he, Jimmy?

   • 1983, Robley Edward Whitson, editor, The Shakers: Two Centuries of Spiritual Reflection, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 325:

     The great mistakes of the present churchal influence, are. I. An attempt to harmonize the Church and the world! II. An effort to combine, in one churchal organization, before there is a spiritual harmony in the understandings and heart's emotions of the different religious professors.