Class religious academy cut short (7)
I believe the answer is:
seminar
'class' is the definition.
(seminar is a kind of class)
'religious academy cut short' is the wordplay.
'religious academy' becomes 'seminary' (I've seen this before).
'cut short' means to remove the last letter.
'seminary' with its final letter removed is 'SEMINAR'.
(Other definitions for seminar that I've seen before include "Group discussing" , "Training meeting" , "University discussion" , "Tutorial group meeting" , "Training conference" .)