church, churches
(Greek: Lord's house)
From Old English cirice, "church", from West Germanic kirika, from Greek kyriake (oikia), "Lord's (house)"; from kyrios, "ruler, lord". Greek kyriakon "of the Lord" referred to houses of Christian worship since about 300 A.D.; especially, in the East, although it was less common in this sense than ekklesia or basilike.
An example of the direct Greek-to-Germanic progress of many Christian words, via the Goths; it was probably used by West Germanic people in their pre-Christian period. Also picked up by Slavic, via Germanic; as seen in Old Slavic criky, Russian cerkov. Romance and Celtic languages use variants of Latin ecclesia.