When Mark Doox entered an Eastern Orthodox monastery in Texas in 1987, he thought he might have a calling as a monk. “It was almost like a physical vision,” he said. Doox decided then and there to become an iconographer. But as a Black man who came up in the 1960s, Doox wrestled with the racism he experienced in society and the church — and with the prospect of creating icons of a white Jesus. “I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to express this spirituality, but dealing with the existential quandaries of what it means to be Black in America?” he said.

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Persons: Mark Doox, Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, ”, Doox, “ Locations: Eastern, Texas, America