Died in fire, perhaps, with retired American cleric (9)
I believe the answer is:
subdeacon
'cleric' is the definition.
(subdeacon is a type of cleric)
'died in fire perhaps with retired american' is the wordplay.
'died' becomes 'd' (abbreviation next to the year of someone's death).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fire perhaps' becomes 'beacon' (beacon of light).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'retired american' becomes 'su' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'd' placed inside 'beacon' is 'bdeacon'.
'bdeacon' after 'su' is 'SUBDEACON'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for subdeacon that I've seen before include "Assistant priest" , "One preparing vessels" , "Junior minister" .)