Mother church

Mother church (Lat. Mater Ecclesiae) is a term, especially in Catholicism, depicting the Christian Church as a mother in its functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the mother church of a diocese i.e. Cathedral or a metropolitan church. The term has specific meanings within different Christian denominations.

This term is most often used among Roman Catholics as the Holy Mother Church or Sancta Mater Ecclesiae. The Church is considered to be a mother to its members because it is the Bride of Christ and all other churches have had their origin or derived their authority. Another term often used in Catechism in many pious Catholic countries is the title "Mater et Magistra" (Mother and Teacher), referencing its matrimonial espousement to Jesus Christ. It is used as "Designating the whole Christian Church or all Christians collectively."

In Anglicanism, the Church of England gave rise to all the other Churches in the Anglican Communion, and as such, She is considered the Mother Church; the Archbishop of Canterbury thus serves as the focus of the Anglican Communion.

In Methodism, the Methodist Church of Great Britain is considered the Mother Church by all the other Methodist Churches in the World Methodist Council, with Methodist Central Hall often being a symbol of this tradition. This is because the Methodist Church of Great Britain "gave birth to the whole Methodist enterprise and then of a nineteenth-century church whose influence reached out across the world through the missionary endeavors of the various British Connexions within and beyond the British Empire."

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