Church holding ancient stone, gold and silver in suspended state (4,7)
I believe the answer is:
cold storage
'silver in suspended state' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'church holding ancient stone gold' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'cage' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'holding' indicates putting letters inside.
'ancient' becomes 'old' (similar in meaning).
'stone' becomes 'st' (abbreviation).
'gold' becomes 'or' ('or' is the heraldic name for gold).
'old'+'st'+'or'='oldstor'
'cage' placed around 'oldstor' is 'COLD-STORAGE'.
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cold storage that I've seen before include "Preservation at low temperatures" , "State of temporary suspension" , "State of abeyance - refrigeration" , "Being on ice" , "refrigerator" .)