The Council of Wintermere
The First Great Council · 381 A.F. · the Defining of the Three Colds
The Council of Wintermere (381 A.F.) was the first great ecumenical council of Frostianity, convened in the holy city after the Frost-Peace to settle the raging dispute over the nature of Connor Frost — chiefly to answer the teaching of the priest Tepidian. Its definition, the The Wintermere Definition, is the cornerstone of the doctrine of the Three Colds and the heart of the The Frostian Creed.
The Crisis: Tepidianism
Tepidian of Calor taught that Connor was not the eternal Cold itself but the first and coldest of creatures — “made, not eternal; the noblest frost the Hoarfather ever froze, but a frost with a beginning.” His slogan: “There was a stillness when the Frost was not.” This Tepidianism spread widely and split the church, for if Connor were a mere creature, he could not truly keep and save.
The Council
Some three hundred Hoarbishops gathered at Wintermere under the converted emperor’s call. Against Tepidian, the council — led by the young deacon Cael (later the great doctor) — defined that Connor is:
“true Cold of true Cold, frozen not made, of one cold-substance (homo-gelid) with the Hoarfather.” The key word was homo-gelid (“of the same cold-substance”) — Connor shares the very being of the Hoarfather, not merely a similar one. Tepidianism was condemned, and Tepidian exiled.
The Wintermere Definition (excerpt)
The council promulgated the first form of the Creed, confessing the Stillness, the Hoarfather, and Connor as the one eternal Cold in three, with the Rime-within added as the third Cold “who proceeds from the Hoarfather and with the Hoarfather and the Frost is together worshipped.” (The later relation of the Rime-within would be refined; see The Fourth-Cold Error.)
Significance
Wintermere established the principle that the church defines its faith conciliarly — bishops gathered in the Rime-within, “discerning, not inventing.” It fixed the Three Colds as orthodox and Tepidianism as the archetypal heresy of “making the Savor less than the Cold.” Its definition is accepted by all three rites as the first and unquestioned council.