Officer from church gets university award for playing the devil's advocate perhaps (9)

I believe the answer is:

occultist

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'award for playing the devil's advocate perhaps' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.

'officer from church gets university' is the wordplay.
'officer' becomes 'oc' (I've seen this in other clues).
'from' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'church' becomes 'cult' (cult is a kind of church).
'gets university' becomes 'ist' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'oc'+'cult'+'ist'='OCCULTIST'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for occultist that I've seen before include "black artist" , "Supernatural believer" .)

I've seen this clue in the Irish Times.

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