Martin I

(d. 655)

   Pope, Saint and Martyr.

   Martin was born in Tuscany, Italy. He was elected Pope in 649. Even before his election had been confirmed by the Eastern Emperor, Martin, with maximus the confessor, had encouraged the condemnation of Monethelitism (the heresy that the God–Man possessed but a single will) at the Lateran Synod. Subsequently the Synod condemned the Emperor’s ‘Typos’ which forbade discussion of both Monothelitism and Diothelitism (the orthodox opinion that the God– Man had both a divine and a human will). In consequence the Emperor tried to persuade his Exarch, Olympius, to arrest Martin. Olympius refused, but his successor Theodore Calliopias imprisoned him in Naxos and then brought him to Constantinople. There he was formally disgraced and banished. He died soon afterwards and he is venerated within the Roman Catholic Church as a martyr.

   J.N.D. Kelly (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (1986).