Of the six catechetical schools that taught theology in the earliest centuries of the church, there were four that taught universalism, one which taught annihilationism and one that taught eternal conscious torment.
1- Antioch (universalist)
2- Alexandria (universalist)
3- Cesarea (universalist)
4- Eastern Syria (universalist)
5- Asia Minor (annihilation)
6- Hippo (eternal conscious torment)
While none of the catechetical schools dismissed the idea of a final judgment or “hell,” it was only the school in Hippo (North Western Africa) more than 1,700 miles away from the others, which defined hell as never-ending eternal conscious torment. Even the one other non-universalist school (Asia Minor) taught that the reprobate are “destroyed” or wiped out of existence - not that they are endlessly tortured by God without end.
The universalist schools viewed any eschatological punishments as a form of remediation or healing - that God’s judgments are ultimately “restorative" (that He only acts in love, even in his justice). But theologians from Hippo were not afforded easy access to frequent and dialogue with these majority schools due to geographical restrictions (traveling by boat for 1,700 miles wasn’t exactly convenient).
Nevertheless, a theologian emerged from Hippo named Augustine, who would become the most prominent theologian of the Western Church (Roman Catholic and Prostestant). Augustine himself recognized that his minority view of eternal conscious torment was not held by the majority of the early church. Nevertheless, due to his popularity here in the West, Augustine’s singular view became enshrined as the “only allowable view,” and all other perspectives were taken off the table and deemed heretical.
This means we would have to make heretics of Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Jerome, Eusebius, Macrina the Younger, Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Maximus the Confessor and countless other pivotal fathers and mothers of the early church who were either full-blown universalists, or at least had strong universal leanings.
My point is just to educate that what is now the "majority view" was once the minority view. And it's not heresy to open one's mind to the possibility of Christ accomplishing a greater victory than we may have imagined.