The word “church,” and its variant “kirk,” present us, in fact, with an unsolved problem. Let us attempt to summarize what is known on the subject, and so prepare the way for a startling hypothesis. First, then, both _church_ and _kirk_ were once believed by lexicographers to be purely Saxon words, but recent research has disproved this theory. After the scholarly labours of Professor Skeat, and the exhaustive analysis prepared by Sir James Murray, we are able to assert that the word _church_, though appearing in a somewhat different form, was known in West Germanic speech so early as the fourth or fifth century of our era. Moreover, there is now general agreement among scholars in referring _church_ to the Greek κῡριακόν. This word is strictly adjectival (neuter of κῡριακός) and means “of the lord,” i.e. dominical (from κῡριος = lord). The term, however, is found to occur substantively, from the third or fourth century at least, in the sense of “house of the Lord,” meaning a Christian place of worship. Writing on this phase of the subject, Sir James Murray declares that there is no other derivation, except that from κῡριακόν, which will bear scientific statement, much less examination.
The Greek origin of _church_ has, nevertheless, been assailed, but without success. The counter-argument runs thus: the ordinary Greek name for _church_ was εκκλησία, and this word, or βασιλική (_basilica_), was the name which passed into Latin and all the Romanic, as well as all the Celtic languages. In the last-named group we find, for example, the Irish and Gaelic _eglais_, and the Welsh _eglwys_. Hence there is “an _a priori_ unlikelihood” that any other Greek equivalent (e.g. κῡριακόν) should have passed into the Teutonic languages. And, as a matter of history, we know that εκκλησία was actually adopted in Gothic, though only to represent a society or an assembly, not a place or building. So far, then, there is no convincing proof against the co-existence of a Gothic representative of κῡριακόν. Moreover, it seems clear that the other Teutonic tribes did not accept _ecclesia_ on their conversion; yet one would suppose that this word, or its counterpart _basilica_, would have been adopted naturally. What was the reason for this non-acceptance? The answer is, that a Teutonic form of κῡριακόν, namely _kirika_, had already obtained a firm hold, and could not be dislodged. A minor argument against the proposed derivation is the rareness of the Greek word, but this objection has not much weight.