States of the Church

the States of the Church pl (normally plural, singular State of the Church)

1. (dated, historical) The Papal States.
   • 1832 July, “Political Condition of the Italian States”, in The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume 55, number 110, page 381:

     It may be necessary to enquire into the origin and progress of the temporal authority of the Court of Rome—the means by which the aggrandizement of the States of the Church has been at different periods effected—and the only possible object with which a European congress can have replaced them under an antiquated subjection.

   • 1918, Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, 1st edition, page 671:

     On September 20, 1870, Victor Emmanuel captured Rome, and the inhabitants of the district voted one hundred and thirty-three thousand to one thousand five hundred for annexation to Italy. […] Thus came to an end the States of the Church, the oldest continuous secular sovereignty then existing in Europe.