Martin I
Martin I
Pope, son of Fabricius, a distinguished citizen of the Papal States, was called to the papal chair July 5, 640, as successor to Theodore I. The emperor Constans II made every exertion to induce Martin to approve a decree he had promulgated in 659, forbidding discussions between the orthodox Romanists and the Monothelites. Martin, on the contrary, assembled a council at Rome (the first Lateran), without the emperor's consent, in Oct., 649, in which all heresies, and particularly that of the Monothelites, were condemned, and the decrees of Heraclius and of Constans II denounced. (See for details the article SEE LATERAN COUNCILS [1].) The emperor, enraged at this opposition, caused Martin to be taken prisoner, June 19, 653, and exiled him to the island of Naxos. On Sept. 17, 654, the pope was taken to Constantinople, and kept in prison there for six months. But he bore all his trials with great firmness, refusing to be reconciled to the heretics, and was finally transported to the Thracian Chersonesus. There, in the midst of unfeeling barbarians, he had to suffer the greatest deprivations. Yet he bore it all with Christian patience, and died Sept. 16, 655. His body was afterwards removed to Rome. He is commemorated by the Church of Rome Nov. 12. Eighteen encyclical letters attributed to Martin are published in the Bibliotheca Patrum, and in Labbe's Concilia. See F. Pagi, Breviarium, etc., complectans illustriora Pontificum Romanorum gesta conciliorumn, etc.; Platina, Vitae Potif. Roman.; Artaud de Montor, Hist. des souverains Pontifes Romains, vol. i; Bower, Hist. Popes, 3:44 sq.; Riddle, Hist. Papacy, 1:297; Baur, Dreieinigkeitslehre, vol. 1 and 2; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 34:18; Neander, Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church, 3:186, 187, 188, 191; Herzog, Real-Encyklopädie, 9:122. (J. H.W.)
