Pope St. Martin I
In April both Catholic and Orthodox Christians honor the memory of Pope Martin, who lived in the 7th century. Born in Tuscany, Italy, he received an excellent lay and religious education, and later devoted himself to the church, serving as a presbyter in Rome. After the death of Pope Theodore I in 649, Martin was elected head of the Western Church, possibly owing to the fact that the two powerful and warring Roman clerical clans failed to reach an understanding concerning the papal throne.
In the 7th century the Christian Church, which was not yet divided into its Western and Eastern parts, was split asunder by a damaging heresy called Monothelitism (from monos, “one,” and theleta, “will”). Contrary to the resolutions of earlier church councils and current ecclesiastical doctrines, the Monothelites believed that although Christ’s body was of a dual (human and divine) nature, He had one will.
Their opponents claimed that this teaching excluded the self-sufficiency of Christ’s human will and fully subordinated it to the Holy Father’s divine will. In addition, this doctrine contradicted the resolutions of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), which recognized Christ’s full divinity and humanity.
Modern-day believers are not inclined to delve deeply into the dogmatic subtleties of their faith (they are more interested in elections), while 7th-century Christians, especially in the Eastern Roman Empire, had a fervid interest in the Monothelite problem. There was no end to heated disputes between the “heretics” and the Orthodox in all strata of society, although Emperor Constans II and Paul II, the Patriarch of Constantinople, favored the Monothelite heresy and issued the decree “Paragon of Faith,” banning all disputes and debates on this matter.
In particular, it was categorically forbidden even to mention terms related to the nature of Christ. The Monothelite doctrine was supported by several emperors and many authoritative clergymen, including the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. All the talk on city squares, at bazaars, near churches, and in taverns and nobles’ palaces was focused on the same subject: what is the will and energy of the Son of God?
Opposing the Monothelites was the well-known monk Maximus the Confessor, who maintained that Christ’s human will always preserved its self-sufficiency and only in the act of a free choice could it subject itself to the will of God the Father. There were other dissidents, too, but the overall situation was in favor of the anti-Chalcedonite heretics.
At the time, the Roman See was part of the Ecumenical Church and according to the diptych, occupied the honorable first place (ahead of the throne of Constantinople). This means that for several centuries the Roman See was widely recognized as the arbiter in Christian disputes over dogma. No wonder, then, that when Rome received the imperial “Paragon of Faith,” Pope Martin, a staunch defender of orthodoxy, convened the First Lateran Synod, which was attended by 150 Western and 37 Eastern bishops, including Maximus the Confessor.
The council pronounced an anathema on the Monothelites and the believers who defended Maximus. At the same time, Pope Martin sent a message to Patriarch Paul of Constantinople with a plea to revert to the truly Orthodox practice of faith.
The emperor-turned-heretic flew into a rage and ordered his general, Olympius, to go to Rome and bring Pope Martin for a trial (649). According to St. Martin’s biography, when Olympius arrived in Rome, he “became afraid of the clergy and the people” and devised a diabolical scheme: he sent a soldier to kill the pope secretly. But when the assassin approached St. Martin, he suddenly went blind. Terrified by this miracle, Olympius rushed to Sicily, where he was soon killed in action.
The cruel emperor sent another servant, Theodore, to Rome on an identical mission. This man brought damaging accusations against Martin, such as secret collaboration with the Saracens, the enemies of the empire; defamation of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and illegal occupation of the papal throne. Despite the intercession of the Roman clergy and parishioners, Martin, a sick, old man, was seized by soldiers at night and taken to Constantinople for a trial.
Martin was brought to the courtroom on a stretcher, but the judges harshly ordered him to answer standing up. The trial heard a large number of witnesses, who gave false testimony that the saint maintained treacherous ties with the Saracens. The prejudiced judges would not give the defendant the opportunity to say anything in his defense. All he could say was, “The Lord knows what great benefaction you will bestow on me if you have me executed immediately.”
But this was not the end of it. After the trial the old man, dressed in rags, was taken to the street, where the wicked mob cried out, “Anathema! Anathema for Pope Martin!” The emperor’s verdict was finally announced: “To be stripped of his Holy Orders and executed.” The half- naked, sick, old man was chained up and dragged to a dungeon filled with robbers. Legend has it, however, that even they were more merciful to the pontiff than high-ranking Christians.
It later turned out that Patriarch Paul of Constantinople, Pope Martin’s ideological enemy, interceded for him. When the emperor visited him and told him about Martin’s trial, Paul was gravely sick and beseeched the guest to stop tormenting the pope. The emperor promised to conduct another interrogation in order to bring the defendant back into the fold of the “true faith.” However, Martin said to the judges, “Even if you have me torn into small pieces, I will not deal with the Constantinople Church as long as it is in bad faith.” The indignant emperor nevertheless commuted his death sentence to banishment “to the back of beyond,” Chersonesus of Tauris (a place we know only too well). Exhausted by his illness and ordeals, the courageous pope died there in 655 and was buried outside the city at Blachern Church. Later, the relics of Pope St. Martin I were transferred to Constantinople and then to Rome.
The Monothelite heresy was condemned at the 6th Ecumenical Constantinople Council in the same century (680-681). This finally confirmed the mystical doctrine about the two natures and two wills of Christ. Today, all faithful Catholics and Orthodox are also convinced that the body and will of the Son of God have a divine and human nature. But they might have been mistaken.
