April 13 is the feast of St. Martin I, Pope from 649 to 655 and the last Pope to be martyred. Born at Todi, in Umbria, he was elected Pope in 649 and immediately convened the Lateran Council of 649, which condemned the Ekthesis of Heraclius and the Typos of Constans II — the imperial edicts that imposed the Monothelite compromise on the Church. The council affirmed the two wills of Christ, divine and human, against the Monothelites.
The Emperor Constans II responded by sending the exarch Olympius to Rome to arrest the Pope; the attempt failed, but in 653 the new exarch Theodore Calliopas seized Martin in the Lateran basilica, dragged him through the streets, and shipped him to Constantinople. He was tried for treason, publicly flogged, exiled to Chersonesus in the Crimea, and died there of starvation in 655. The letters he wrote from exile are the last testimony of the patristic Popes.
Martin is the last Pope honoured as a martyr. His body was translated from the Crimea to Rome, where it lies in the church of San Martino ai Monti. From Rome, where he convened the council, to the Crimea, where he died, the April 13 feast is the feast of the Pope who would not let the Emperor dictate the faith.
