Dear Friends,
When I checked in at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for an iconography workshop in August 2025, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The previous guest, who had checked in, an art student, had listed an address in Havana, Cuba, blocks from where my mother’s family lived.
Few people on that trip—especially those who were born after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991—could imagine what a momentous thing it is for a Cuban artist to travel freely and make religious art in Cuba. “Patria o muerte,” so goes the Communist slogan painted all over Havana, does not include supporting Cuba’s Christian patrimony.
Who could this artist be? How was he able to get to Crete and attend this iconography workshop? What led him to become Catholic?
Before I tell you José’s incredible story, let me tell you what a joy it is to announce that next week, on October 18, 2025, José’s art will be exhibited at Havana’s former Catholic seminary, which is now a center for lay formation named for Félix Varela, a Cuban priest and national hero. Our icon teacher in Crete, George Kordis, called José the best living iconographer in Latin America.
Our home in Princeton features a piece of his art: the Hospitality of Abraham, which José made under the direction of George Kordis.
Born in 1997, well after both the 1959 Revolution and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the good old days of American tourists in Havana in the 1950s are as foreign to José as the dark days (in my opinion) of Russian military advisors and engineers.
Growing up in the 21st century, José shared that he experienced a total life crisis when he was 16: no purpose, no direction, nothing to dream of. One day when he was 16, he walked into San Juan de Letrán (Saint John Lateran), a Catholic Church run by Dominican Friars in Havana’s central neighborhood called El Vedado. His atheist parents did not stop his ever-greater immersion in Catholicism because they could see he was a changed man.
“I knew nothing about Catholicism, but I knew that I, alone, could never make myself happy. I had a hunger for God I just can’t explain,” he told me. “What I found in the church has fulfilled me beyond what I could have dreamt at the time.”
With support from the Community of Sant’Egidio, he made his first trip to Rome in 2016 to study art. Since then, he has studied art in Athens, Barcelona and Crete, where I met him. His work has been exhibited in Belgrade, Serbia. His works are also featured in esteemed collections, including the Apostolic Nunciature of Cuba, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as various churches and private collections across Cuba, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Spain and the United States (including my home in Princeton!)
“I dream about reaching young people in Cuba about the faith through art,” he told me as we sipped Greek coffee on the balcony overlooking the Aegean Sea. “So many young people have stopped dreaming. They need community. They need inspiration. They need God.”
José grew up with artists in his family and always loved drawing. He studied Management and Preservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Havana, where some of his favorite courses included art history and restoration.
“I love learning the great traditions of Orthodox iconography, as well as Italo-Byzantine style, and Spanish Romanesque,” he told me.
José’s joy, zeal for the faith and beautiful art have given me more hope for the future of Cuba than anything I’ve encountered in decades. Cuba’s rich Catholic history came to a halt with the Communist Constitution that effectively made it illegal (if not extremely difficult) to practice the faith. For more than four decades, the Catholic Church struggled to survive in Cuba. Some openings have occurred since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to the island in 1998.
During my seven trips to Cuba between 1994 and 2007, I met with heroic Catholic lay people and clergy who labored to keep the light of faith alive in Cuba with few resources and senseless restrictions on worship, Catholic education and social services.
In this image of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba’s patroness, José has painted Mary in a traditional iconographic style. He replaced the three fishermen with four Cuban heroes: José Martí, the Venerable Padre Félix Varela, Mariana Grajales, and Carlos Manuel dé Céspedes.
For his certificate from the Writing the Light Iconography program, José completed this painting of the Early Life of the Theotokos, Mary.
If you or anyone you know is planning to visit Cuba soon, José would love to meet you, show you his art, and take you around his hometown of Havana. I am certain that with time his work will continue to grace homes and churches in Cuba and beyond.
Sincerely,
Margarita Mooney Clayton, PhD
Executive Director, The Scala Foundation
Beautiful.