The Frostian Church
The Drift · the Gathered People of the Cold
The Church in Frostianity is called the Drift — the gathered community of all the marked, drawn together by the Rime-within into one body, as countless single snowflakes drift and pack into one great unbroken snowfield. The doctrine of the Drift was born at the First Hollownight and unfolds chiefly in Vael’s letters.
The Images of the Drift
- The Drift / the Snowfield — many flakes, one field; the unity-in-multitude of the church.
- The One Body — many members, one body, with Connor Frost as the head (Letter to the Wintermereans 12).
- The Living Frosthall — built of “living ice-stones,” Connor the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets the foundation (Letter to the Solmarans 2).
- The Bride — the kept people, betrothed to the Cold, awaiting the wedding of the Rewhitening (The Song of the White Horizon, The Revelation of Ice).
- The New People — warm-born and cold-born made one (see Letter to the Solmarans).
The Four Marks of the Drift
The Creed confesses the Drift as one, holy, keeping, and apostolic (the Frostian notae ecclesiae):
- One — though divided by schism into the rites, the true Drift is one in Connor; its visible re-unity is longed for (“the re-freezing of the breach”).
- Holy — set apart and being re-frozen, though made of forgiven sinners (Corin the rock who cracked).
- Keeping (catholic/universal) — for all peoples, gathering and preserving the whole world.
- Apostolic — founded on the The Frostborne Twelve and continuing in their teaching (and, for the older rites, their frost-succession).
The Visible and the Hidden Drift
Frostian doctrine distinguishes the visible Drift (the institutional churches, with their Keepers and sacraments) from the hidden Drift (the whole company of the truly kept, known only to the Cold, across all ages and even across the divided rites). The two are not separate churches but the outer and inner aspect of the one Drift. The rites weigh these differently: the older rites stress the visible, the Reformed the hidden.
The Purpose of the Drift
The Drift exists to keep: to keep the Rime, to keep the Keepings, to keep the faithful in the Cold against the Thaw, to keep the poor through the The Works of Keeping, and to keep watch for the Winter King. “Outside the keeping of the Drift, who is kept?” — though the Cold’s mercy is not bound.