Formerly of note primarily associated with Church (4)
I believe the answer is:
once
'formerly' is the definition.
(I know that formerly can be written as once)
'of note primarily associated with church' is the wordplay.
'primarily' says to take the initial letters.
'associated with' says to put letters next to each other.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
The initial letters of 'of note' is 'on'.
'on'+'ce'='ONCE'
(Other definitions for once that I've seen before include "In times past" , "One-time musical film and song" , "In former times" , "In days past" , "... upon a time for the storyteller" .)