Martin

Martin I. succeeded Theodore I. in June or July 649. Ho had previously acted as papal apocrisiarius at Constantinople, and was held in high repute for learning and virtue. Almost his first official act was to summon a synod (the first Lateran) for dealing with the Monothelite heresy. It met in the Lateran church, was attended by one hundred and five bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, a few being from Africa and other quarters), held five sessions or "secretarii" from the 5th to the 31st of October 649, and in twenty canons condemned the Monothelite heresy, its authors, and the writings by which it had been promulgated. In this condemnation were included, not only the Ecthesis or exposition of faith of the patriarch Sergius for which the emperor Heraclius had stood sponsor, but also the Typus of Paul, the successor of Sergius, which had the support of the reigning emperor (Constans II.). Martin published the decrees of his Lateran synod in an encyclical, and Constans replied by enjoining his exarch to seize the pope and send him prisoner to Constantinople. Martin was arrested in the Lateran (June 15, 653), hurried out of Rome, and conveyed first to Naxos and subsequently to Constantinople (Sept. 17, 654). He was ultimately banished to Cherson, where he arrived on the 26th of March 655, and died on the 26th of September following. His successor was Eugenius I. (L. D.*) A full account of the events of his pontificate will be found in Hefele's Conciliengeschichte, vol. iii. (1877).