Welcome! Let me welcome you to the Ixthus Catacombs, a place where you can hang out, find help, offer help, learn stuff, teach stuff, etc.
Ixthus is the ancient fish symbol that would tell people they were Christians. A group of Greek letters inside the fish would often be IXOYE. People would draw a curved line in the dust as they stood, and others would complete the sign of the fish if they shared the Faith. It was a mostly-safe way to learn who was and wasn’t a believer.
Today, in April 2021, we are facing, for the first time, the potential for global ostracization of those who do not adhere to the dictates of world leaders. The potential, first beginning in Israel of all places, where those who do not or cannot get the “vaccine” are unable to do business like the did in the past, is becoming very real! As human beings, our need for clothing, food, shelter, and transportation does not stop merely because we can’t or won’t bow to a global method of depopulating control. In addition to health issues many face, religious and personal conviction will stop many from taking the “vaccine” as well. Here in Canada, at this time, employers can’t force employees to get vaccinated but they CAN restrict employee interactions to the point of making them work from home. Australia, the USA, China and other places are starting to experiment with “vaccine passports” that would restrict travel to and from the country as well as inside it, restrict entertainment venues to those with passports, and allow those with passports to move about unhindered in their day-to-day errands. The occasional voice in leadership is starting to cause dissent to this idea, but whether that is enough to halt this train in it’s tracks remains to be seen.
The fact is now present that Christians, and those who out of principal or health reasons won’t or can’t be “vaccinated” need a way to find and do business with each other apart from traditional methods that we used to this point.
Enter the Ixthus Catacombs! This is a very basic rendition of the kind of infrastructure, community, and capability to connect with others who have what you need, and offer what you have. In a neighbourhood there are neighbours who run over to help with no expectation for payment. Another neighbour runs a store in town where you shop to support them. The Ixthus Catacombs will be the same way.
The Ixthus Bazaar is set up for you where you can offer a skill, talent or ability as a “product” alongside others who may offer physical goods, in-person services or remote services, digital goods, etc. Inside this Bazaar, you can offer your skill for free the way you would to the neighbour down the street, and make sure in your description this is local, in-person only. You can offer a skill to a wider region if it is not necessary to be in person and arrange for delivery, charging for your time or service and delivery or offering it free to the region you’ve specified. OR you can act as a storefront and be that neighbour who owns the business in town. Again, you can decide if your storefront is local only, regional only or global.
The Ixthus Academy is set up to let people teach the various skills and abilities or product-know-how that they have. The system is basic enough to allow for plain text, but can be built upon depending on what various people want to teach and how they want to teach it.
The Great Hall, a tab in your personal profile, is a gateway via a code you paste into the box, to the Ixthus live meeting rooms. These rooms act much like Zoom meetings, but are provided by a different company that doesn’t charge for meetings based on time or number of attendees. If you have bought a teaching on something, you may get a code to enter in the box of The Great Hall so that you can sit in on the training sessions for that teaching. If the Catacombs as a community call a community-wide meeting, you’ll enter that code into The Great Hall to join. The Great Hall will be used for a wide variety of meetings with all the same controls one would expect in Zoom from muting everyone to recording the session to the chat sidebar, etc. The only things The Great Hall won’t do is breakout rooms and virtual backgrounds.
When you click on the Ixthus Catacombs Wall, you’ll be taken to what other sites have termed, your newsfeed. This is where you’ll see interactions open to the community. There will be groups you can join, fan pages you can follow, and the ability to create those groups and fan pages yourself. You’ll be able to make friends and share with them publicly and privately. Resharing each other’s posts is not a thing at this time. Instead, ask if you can reshare, then copy/paste into a new post, request permission to download to reshare, etc.
In ancient times, catacombs had various passageways leading to various rooms, some large, some small. Initially, such rooms were to bury the dead, but when Nero began persecuting Christians, they moved underground into these catacombs and carved out communities for themselves. It is said that only the Christians knew their way around the catacombs and strangers could die down there. Being virtual, the way out and the way in are always visible, as are the various potential areas one can participate in. But the idea of somewhere away from “big tech” and away from government oversight is what gave rise to these particular catacombs.
Respect fellow users of this system. Most communities of this type say that what is shared here, stays here, and for the most part that is true of the Ixthus Catacombs as well, with one major provision: If you know of Christians or those for whom following “official narratives” is untenable and they are friendly to Christians, you can share what is available for help in your area. As Christians, we are to do good to all men, particularly those of the household of faith. So these resources that grow and morph here are not to be kept here. The only information to be kept here is anything shared of a sensitive nature that could put someone in trouble with the law and mandates in their country.
Make yourself at home. We’re glad you found us!
