St. Martin I

Martin I became pope at a time when the Byzantine court was trying to quiet the Monothelite controversy by political force and doctrinal vagueness. He refused that false peace. In 649 he held the Lateran council, which clearly condemned the teaching that weakened the truth about Christ's real human will. For that fidelity he paid heavily. Imperial agents seized him in Rome, carried him by stages to Constantinople, exposed him to public humiliation, and finally sent him into exile in the Crimea.

Ill, abandoned, and treated as a criminal, he endured long suffering far from the city and church he had governed. He never recovered his position in worldly terms, and he never returned home. Yet that very loss is what makes his witness so strong. Martin stands among the popes who showed that the office of Peter is not preserved by easy compromise, but by fidelity to the truth even when truth leaves a man outwardly stripped and alone.