SAINT MARTIN I, Pope and Martyr, (†655)

Butler's Life of the Saints, Magnificat.ca ^ | 1894 | John Gilmary Shea

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SAINT MARTIN I
Pope and Martyr
(†655)

Saint Martin, who occupied the Roman See from 649 to 655, was a native of Toscany, and became celebrated amid the clergy of Rome for his learning and his sanctity. When he was elected Pope, Rome echoed with cries of joy; the clergy, the Senate and the people gave witness to their great satisfaction, and the emperor approved this happy choice. He did not disappoint the hopes of the Church; piety towards God and charity to the poor were his two rules of life. He repaired churches falling into ruin and restored peace between divergent factions, but his greatest concern was to maintain in the Church the precious heritage of the true faith.

For this purpose he assembled in the Lateran Church a Council of a hundred bishops, which condemned the principal heads of the eastern Monothelite heresy, again raising its head. Saint Martin himself sent out an encyclical letter to all prelates, showing that a spurious Credo circulating in the east was erroneous, and excommunicating all who followed it. He incurred the enmity of the Byzantine court and even of two patriarchs, by his energetic opposition to their errors, and the Exarch of Ravenna, representing the oriental Emperor Constant II in Italy, went so far as to endeavor to procure the assassination of the Pope while he stood at the altar in the Church of Saint Mary Major. The would-be murderer, a page of the Exarch, was miraculously struck blind, however, and his lord refused to have any further role in the matter. But the eastern Emperor’s successor had no such scruples. After having the holy Pontiff accused of many fabricated misdeeds, he seized Saint Martin — who did not resist or permit resistance, for fear of bloodshed in Rome — then had him conveyed to Constantinople on board a vessel bound for that port. None of his clergy were permitted to accompany him; he was boarded at night in secret.

After a three month’s voyage the ship anchored at the island of Naxos in the Aegean Sea, where the Pope was kept in confinement for a year, then finally brought in chains to the imperial city in 654, where he was imprisoned for three months. When he appeared before his judge he was unable to stand without support; but the pitiless magistrate heard his accusers and sentenced him to be chained and dragged through the streets of the city. He bade farewell to his companions in captivity before he left, banished to the present-day Crimea (the Chersonese in those days), saying to them when they wept: “Rejoice with me that I have been found worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.” There, where a famine prevailed, he lingered on for four months, abandoned to sickness and starvation but maintaining perfect serenity, until God released him by death from his tribulations on the 12^th of November, 655. In a letter he sent from there, which has been conserved, the Pope wrote: “For this miserable body, the Lord will have care; He is near. What is there to alarm me? I hope in His mercy, it will not be long before it terminates my career.”

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Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).

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The Optional Memorial of St. Martin I is April 13.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

So if someone was a Monothelite, they couldn’t be a Christian or just discuss it?

I think it was just politics.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

It was political on the part of the Emperor, who viewed it as a compromise between the Trinitarians of Constantinople and Rome and the Monophysites of Antioch and Alexandria. The result of the heretical leanings of Egypt and Syria was disaffection to the Empire and the Muslim conquest in the previous decades.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Egypt was disaffected by all the “Christian” on “Christian” persecution, killing and anathemas over doctrinal trifles used as excuses for the pope’s or the patriarch’s self-aggrandizement and was glad to be rid of Rome and Constantinople. There was nothing for anybody to be proud of, nobody was being “saintly”, while Muslims ate their lunch.

If they’d been just preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of grabbing for power and murdering their neighbors, things would have been a whole lot better. The Church wanted to BE the empire and rule. They gave emperors excuses for war instead of telling the emperor that no doctrinal difference was worth spilling blood. But most of the time the popes and patriarchs were puppets of the warlords and it was nothing but a bloody mess for 1500 years.

I just don’t see anything saintly about this guy or his enemies.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The early part of the seventh century the Zoroastrian Persians were occupying Egypt and Syria - it was only part of the Empire for about 25 years before the Muslim invasion. By the way, what inter-Christian religious wars are you talking about?

[Del Rapier]

I think the original Martin was some kind of Greek-Roman general in the Gothic war,working for General Belisarius to secure Italy for the Byzantine empire.

[Campion]

If they’d been just preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ

They were. Problem is, they didn't agree about who "Jesus Christ" was and is.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

People still don’t agree on who Jesus is.
The safest approach is to take His Word: “I Am That I Am”.
It was all beside the point.
The point is to do what he said, which nobody was doing.
When the pope was throwing around excommunications on this nothing,
Jesus’ words to Peter come to mind, “Get behind me, Satan.”

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Egypt was mostly Christianized by the time of Theodosius I (395 AD).
(The last outpost of the Egyptian religion at Philae was wiped out by Justinian in 537.)
It had been “monophysite” Christian for a century, not converted to Zoroastrianism during persian occupation.
But that didn’t help.

Heraclius was having tongues cut out and other tortures if you opposed Monotheletism
and the popes were provoking things with their anathemas.

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Saint Martin I, Pope & Martyr

Saint Martin I, Pope & Martyr
Optional Memorial
April 13th

unknown artist

History:

St Martin I was elected Pope at Rome, July 21, 649. For his defense of Christ as true God and true Man, he was exiled by the Byzantine Emperor Constans II to Crimera where he died.

Source: Daily Roman Missal, Edited by Rev. James Socías, Midwest Theological Forum, Chicago, Illinois ©2003

 

Collect:
Merciful God, our Father,
neither hardship, pain, nor the threat of death
could weaken the faith of Saint Martin.
Through our faith, give us courage
to endure whatever sufferings the world may inflict upon us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. +Amen.

First Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-13;3:10-12
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel, the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory. The saying is sure: If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful -- for He cannot deny Himself.

Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, my sufferings, what befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Gospel Reading: John 5:18-21
"If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than His master.' If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all this they will do to you on My account, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

[Campion]

It was all beside the point.

Who Jesus is, is "beside the point"? So when Jesus asked Peter, "Who do men say that I am?", Peter should have responded, "That's beside the point!" ??

Interesting ...