SAINT MARTIN I

Feast Day - April 13

Lived (d. September 16, 655)

In 649, when Martin I became pope, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the patriarch of Constantinople was the most influential Church leader in the eastern Christian world. The Church was struggling with a heresy that Christ had no human will.

Emperors Heraclius published a formula of faith, and Constans II silenced the issue of one or two wills in Christ.

Not long after he assumed the office of the papacy—which he did without the Emperor's confirmation—Martin held a council at the Lateran in which the imperial documents were disapproved, and in which the patriarch of Constantinople and two of his predecessors were condemned. In response, Constans II first tried to turn bishops and people against the pope.

When his attempt to kill the pope was futile, he sent troops to Rome to arrest Martin and bring him back to Constantinople. Martin offered no resistance, though in poor health, returned with Calliopas, the exarch of Constantinople, and was then submitted to various imprisonments, tortures, and hardships. Although condemned to death and with some of the imposed torture already carried out, Martin was saved from execution by the pleas of a repentant Paul, patriarch of Constantinople, who was himself gravely ill.

Martin died shortly after his release from prison as a result of the tortures and cruel treatment. He is the last of the early popes to be venerated as a martyr.