One who robs or plunders the or a church.

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1535.  Coverdale, Acts xix. 37. Nether Church robbers ner blasphemers off youre goddesse.

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1614.  Raleigh, Hist. World, II. 460. Of her buriall there is no Monument, for she was a Church-robber.

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a. 1649.  Drumm. of Hawth., Jas. V., Wks. (1711), 101. King Henry was … a shameful and shameless adulterer, a publick and profest homicide, murtherer, a sacrilegious person, a church-robber.

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1884.  Jessop, in 19th Cent., Jan., 119. The monks were the greatest church-robbers that the world has ever known.

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  So Church-robbing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.

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1565.  Jewel, Def. Apol. (1611), 384. The Pope may neuer bee accused…. It were as bad as Church-robbing, to reason, or mooue matter of any his doings.

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1613.  R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3), Sacrileage, Church-robbing.

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1620.  J. Dyke, Counterpoyson, 57. The Church-robbing and Church-pilling couetousnesse of our dayes.

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