Early Life and Service
Martin was born in Italy toward the close of the sixth century, by the accounts near Todi in the region of Umbria, though some sources place his origin in Tuscany. He was educated in the doctrine of the Church and entered the clergy of Rome.
His learning and ability led to his appointment as papal apocrisiarius, the representative of the Roman Church at the imperial court in Constantinople, an office he held under Pope Theodore I. This service gave him direct knowledge of the theological disputes then troubling the empire.
Election and the Lateran Council
On the death of Pope Theodore I in 649, Martin was chosen to succeed him as Pope of Rome. He took up the office without waiting for the consent of the Byzantine emperor Constans II, which had customarily been sought for a papal election.
Within a few months of his election Martin convened the Lateran Council at Rome. Gathered over five sessions in October 649 with about a hundred bishops, the council condemned the Monothelite heresy, which taught that Christ possessed two natures but only a single will. The council also rejected the imperial decrees that had supported the heresy, the Ecthesis issued under Patriarch Sergius and the Typos issued by the emperor Constans II.
Arrest, Trial, and Exile
Martin's open defiance of the imperial decrees provoked the anger of Constans II, who moved to remove him. By tradition an attempt on his life failed when the would-be assassin was struck blind on approaching the pope. Martin was eventually seized at the Lateran in the year 653 and carried off by way of the island of Naxos to Constantinople.
There he endured a long and exhausting imprisonment, suffering hunger, ill-treatment, and many public indignities, before being brought to trial and condemned. The accounts relate that he was not permitted to present his defense.
Repose and Veneration
Martin's sentence of exile was carried out at Cherson in the Crimea. Worn down by hunger and sickness, he reposed there on September 16, 655, having held firm in his confession of the Orthodox faith to the end.
He is honored in the Church as a confessor and is remembered as the last Pope of Rome venerated as a martyr for the faith. As a pre-schism saint of the undivided Church, he is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on April 13 and April 14.
