Student of the sun seen around church (7)
I believe the answer is:
scholar
'student' is the definition.
(I know that scholar is a type of student)
'sun seen around church' is the wordplay.
'sun' becomes 'solar' (I've seen this before).
'seen around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'church' becomes 'ch' (abbreviation on maps etc).
'solar' enclosing 'ch' is 'SCHOLAR'.
'of the' is the link.
(Other definitions for scholar that I've seen before include "Noted academic" , "Academic, schoolboy" , "Student or learned person" , "Academic; pupil" , "Man of letters" .)