Saint Martyrius (in the world of Mina) was born in Velikiye Luki. He was orphaned in his tenth year. By this time, the boy Mina already knew the Psalter. The care of the orphan was taken over by a priest of the Church of the Annunciation named Bogolep, and Mina fell in love with the church service. A few years later, the widowed priest took the veil at the monastery of the silverless; Mina visited him here, too, and visited him when Bogolep was appointed the builder of the Velikiye Luki Sergiev Monastery. In this monastery, Mina, having distributed his entire estate, took vows with the name of Martyrius. 
After living for 7 years with mentor Bogolep, Martyrius wished to live in seclusion in a deserted place, 60 miles from Velikiye Luki. The monk writes in his story: "Near some stream, on the shore in the ground, in clay, we dug ourselves a dugout and covered it with fir branches. I lived in the desert and fed on my needlework: I wove bast shoes from bast and sent them to the villagers with a visiting peasant, and they sent with him everything I needed. And I, a sinner, accepted with gratitude what they offered." However, Bogolep advised him to return to the monastery, as he could be useful to others here. Perplexed, he went to worship the Smolensk Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Wonderworker Abraham. I received an answer in Smolensk: "you must live in the desert, where the Lord and His Most Pure Mother will show you." At the Tikhvin monastery, he was delighted to meet with his disciple Abraham, who, being ill, was healed by the Mother of God and remained in Tikhvin.
Martyrius asked the Lord to show him a secluded place for his labors. Such a place was indicated at night to the disciple of Martyrius by the sign of the cross-shaped dawn on the island, which has long been called Green. The pious villager Joseph brought him food from time to time, and sometimes, confused by thoughts and fuss, left him without it for a long time. By the time they found out about the hermit of the Green Island. No matter how many monastic monasteries there were in the Novgorod region at that time, there were none in the wilderness where Martyrius settled. Therefore, having learned about Martyria, sincere ascetics aspired to his desert with special fervor. Martyrios built a chapel and cells with a fence. The pious boyar Theodore Syrkov also learned about him; through his zeal, the Church of the Annunciation was built in the Martyrian desert, and the brethren begged the elder to assume the priesthood and command over them with the title of abbot. It was no later than 1570.
But Martyria had to struggle with needs and poverty for a long time. In the scribe's book of the Obonezhskaya pyatina for 1583 it is written: "In the Mikhailovsky churchyard on the Ladoga foothills, a monastery called the Green Desert, on an island, is being built again in the black forest. In the monastery is the church of the Life—giving Trinity, the other church is the Annunciation with a meal, both wooden; in the monastery is Abbot Martyri and 12 elders; the fence around the monastery is wooden; there is a cow and stable yard behind the monastery; there is no arable land."
Here is what St. Martyrius tells us about the heavenly consolation that visited him: "I was sleeping in my cell, in a closet, and in a dream I saw the Most Pure Theotokos in a maiden's image; She was beautiful in appearance: I had never seen such a beautiful girl among people; her face was touched and beautiful. On her head was a golden crown decorated with colorful stones. It is impossible for the human mind to comprehend its beauty, nor to express it in language. She, the Queen and Mother of God, is looking at me. Her eyes were full of tears, almost drowning on her pure face."
In the last years of his life, Martyrius became famous for the gift of healing. In 1595, on his way to Moscow, he stopped in Tver. Tsar Simeon Bekbulatovich, who lived in Tver at that time, had a sick son, and the tsar, having learned about Martyria, asked him to come and pray for his dying son. The monk placed the Tikhvin Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos on John's chest, and the sick man was healed. After that, the tsar was the most zealous benefactor of the Martyri monastery. In 1595, he gave the monastery a charter, approving the monastery founded by Martyriy.
Martyrius made a will, "Punishment to the Brethren," which was to be announced after his death. He instructed his spiritual children not to leave the monastery, not to accept land grants from the tsar, advised them to "feed on their labors," not relying "on either the prince or the bolyarin." A year and a half before his repose, Martyrius devoted himself to silence and prayer; having dug a grave with his own hands and placed a coffin in it, he came here to cry and pray. He reposed on March 11, 1603, and was buried near the monastery's Bogoroditskaya Church. The Monk Martyriy Zelenetsky was glorified by the Church in the face of the monk, commemorated on March 14 and November 24.