A place protecting women linked to religious education in a way (2,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
as it were
'in a way' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a place protecting women linked to religious education' is the wordplay.
'place' becomes 'site' ('site' can be a synonym of 'place'**).
'protecting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'women' becomes 'w'.
'linked to' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'religious education' becomes 're'.
'site' enclosing 'w' is 'sitwe'.
'a'+'sitwe'+'re'='AS IT WERE'
(Other definitions for as it were that I've seen before include "Seemingly" , "In a kind of way" , "you might say" , "Historically ungrammatical" , "you may say" .)