Cathedral staff opposed accepting dean's ultimate authority (7,3,5)
I believe the answer is:
chapter and verse
'authority' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'cathedral staff opposed accepting dean's ultimate' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'opposed' could be 'v' (abbreviation for versus) and 'v' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'dean' is 'ande' which is located in the remaining letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for chapter and verse that I've seen before include "Full" , "authority" , "location of Biblical text" , "complete specification" , "precise testimony" .)