The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 plus 3 letter word CANON LAW
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
C
A
N
O
N
L
A
W
More clues leading to the result CANON LAW
- Prison supported by city with body of rules
- Long nail securing unsigned church regulations
- Read about a Northern city beginning to waive church rules
- Scrabble broken up by unknown author’s strict rules
- Pope’s digested pronouncements mentioning knowledge of guns?
- Religious orders
- Tin is above Lanthanum and Tungsten. Those are rules!
- Prison supported by city with set of religious rules
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "church rules" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case church rules = canon law.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.