Following son in church (5)

I believe the answer is:

since

'following' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'son in church' is the wordplay.
'son' becomes 's'.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
's'+'in'+'ce'='SINCE'

(Other definitions for since that I've seen before include "Seeing that" , "From that time one" , "in the past" , "Because; ago" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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