Article on church work results in dismissal (3,4)

'dismissal' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?

'article on church work' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'article' could be 'the' (the definite article in English) and 'the' is located in the answer.
'church' could be 'ch' (common abbreviation) and 'ch' is present in the answer.
'work' could be 'op' (abbreviation for opus) and 'op' is found in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'results in' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?