13 APRIL, OPTIONAL MEMORIAL
St. Martin was born at Todi in the city of Umbria, Italy. Scholarly sound and spiritual he was elected to the papal throne on 21 July 649.
Strongly upholding the Catholic, he began his papacy without the approval of emperor Constans 11, the then Roman emperor who derived Monothelitism to gain political supports.
He was ceased recognition as the pope by Constans who issued decree to bound people from discussing the issues. Martin convoked a synod at Lateran in Rome in order to convict both monothelitism and the emperor’s decree and wrote Constans persisting that he accept the synods . In response to this Constans made everything possible to anihilate him by successively sending people to arrest him. He was kept under solitary detaintion where he was harshly treated for three months. Not minding the baised judgement of the court on the issue of doctrinal differences between him and Constans, he was condemned to exile and he was publicly whipped; though with the intervention of the Patriach of Constantinople, the sentence was commuted to banishment to the Crimea. The churchmen in Rome took no care in seeking for his release but went ahead to elect a new pope while he was still alive. Despite his letters of complaint from the prison to the church, they took no care leading to his death from starvation and brutal treatment for six months. The Eastern Church commemorates him on this date and the West adopted it too.
He was venerated as a martyr though the Church of Rome should be cupable for his death.
St. Martin ……..pray for us.