Drugs coming from church beset by criminal actions (9)
I believe the answer is:
narcotics
'drugs' is the definition.
(narcotic is a kind of drug)
'church beset by criminal actions' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'rc' (abbreviation for Roman Catholic).
'beset by' means one lot of letters goes inside another ('beset' could historically mean 'cover').
'criminal' indicates an anagram.
'actions' with letters rearranged gives 'naotics'.
'rc' going inside 'naotics' is 'NARCOTICS'.
'coming from' is the link.
(Other definitions for narcotics that I've seen before include "Addictive drugs" , "Stupefying drugs" , "Drugs that cause sleep or drowsiness" .)