American escaping from even church's grasp (6)
I believe the answer is:
clench
'grasp' is the definition.
('clench' can be a synonym of 'grasp')
'american escaping from even church's' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'church' could be 'ch' (common abbreviation) and 'ch' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for clench that I've seen before include "Hold in a tight grasp" , "Grip; grit (teeth)" , "Settle; embrace" , "Grasp firmly" , "Get a grip on" .)