Protestant churchman’s articles in Spanish and German (5)
I believe the answer is:
elder
'protestant churchman's' is the definition.
(type of protestant church official)
'articles in spanish and german' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'german' could be 'de' (abbreviation for Deutschland) and 'de' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elder that I've seen before include "White-flowered tree" , "more mature" , "Character of church" , "Kind of tree or sage person" , "senior church member" .)