Walker has been a part of the Shrine of the Black Madonna since 1990 and serves as an associate pastor, sharing the church’s teachings in Houston, Atlanta, and throughout South Carolina.

At its peak, the Shrine — renamed in 1978 as the Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church — had eight churches in Michigan, five of them in Detroit.

The Marian shrine, located about 25 miles north of Philadelphia, was established in 1955 by a Polish priest from the Order of ...