I study a figure of the church (4)
I believe the answer is:
icon
'figure of the church' is the definition.
'icon' can be an answer for 'figure' (I've seen this before). I'm not sure about the 'of the church' bit.
'i study a' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'i' is within the answer.
'study' could be 'con' (con can informally mean to study) and 'con' is found in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for icon that I've seen before include "Religious painting of Greek origin" , "Idol" , "A representative or sacred picture" , "Very important person" , "Computer-screen symbol" .)