Sorry criminal steals archbishop's first beads (6)
I believe the answer is:
rosary
'beads' is the definition.
(rosary is a kind of beads)
'sorry criminal steals archbishop's first' is the wordplay.
'criminal' indicates an anagram.
'steals' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'first' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'archbishops' is 'a'.
'sorry' anagrammed gives 'rosry'.
'rosry' placed around 'a' is 'ROSARY'.
(Other definitions for rosary that I've seen before include "Series of prayers" , "String of beads used in devotions" , "Catholic's string of beads" , "Flower garden" , "String of prayer beads" .)