Maysville, Missouri, March 24, 2025
Photo: bigwhitestar.com Punks to Monks, a new book from St. Nicholas Press, covers the history of Death to the World, a ‘zine launched by Orthodox monks in the 1990s to bring the truth of holy Orthodoxy to the youth lost in the punk subculture.
The publication tells the story of Justin Marler, a founding member of the influential stoner rock band Sleep, and his exit from the music scene to become a monk at St. Herman’s Monastery in Platina, California, which was co-founded by Fr. Seraphim (Rose).
During his seven-year tenure as a monk, he founded Death to the World, which proved to be quite influential among the punk counterculture that it targeted in the mid- to late-1990s.
St. Nicholas Press describes the book:
Imagine walking through the doors of a San Francisco Bay Area punk venue in the 1990s to encounter a wall of leather-clad young people swaying to the thrashing beat of a deafening live band. As you push your way through the crowd, you are handed a rough black-and-white photocopied ‘zine (short for magazine), an image-laden protest against injustice and selling out to mainstream corporate culture.
Out of the hundreds of counter-culture ‘zines that saw the light of day in the early nineties, only one has survived in print – the brainchild of young punk guitarist Justin Marler, who left his music in 1992 to live as an Eastern Orthodox monk in the mountains of Northern California. Mindful of those he had left behind, Justin collaborated with Orthodox brethren and friends to launch Death to the World ‘zine – a vehicle to unmask the darkness, and even more radically to shine a light on the way forward. Their message? The 2000-year-old ascetic and mystical tradition of Orthodox Christianity.
Punks to Monks traces the history of DTTW and its phenomenal rise, including Marler’s own journey, told here for the first time. Meet the second generation of Orthodox youth who took up the ‘zine in 2006 and continue it until now, their Serbian counterparts, and the readers who have used it as a lifeline for thirty years.
Punks to Monks, 150 pages, is available from St. Nicholas Press for $17.95.
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