From the Prologue of Ochrid
He became Pope on July 5, 649, at the very time of the fierce dispute between the Orthodox and the Monothelite heretics (those who held that Christ had but one will). At that time Constans II, the grandson of Heraclius, was emperor, and the Patriarch of Constantinople was Paul. In order to establish peace in the Church, the emperor himself wrote a booklet called the Typos, which was greatly to the liking of the heretics. Pope Martin convened a council of 105 bishops, at which this imperial booklet was condemned. At the same time the Pope wrote a letter to Patriarch Paul, beseeching him to hold to the pure Orthodox faith and to counsel the emperor to desist from heretical speculations. This letter enraged both the Patriarch and the emperor. And the emperor sent a certain commander, Olympius, to Rome to bring the Pope bound to Constantinople. The commander did not dare to bind the Pope, but persuaded a soldier to slay him with a sword in the church. But when the soldier entered the church with his sword concealed, he was suddenly struck blind. Thus by the Providence of God Martin escaped death. At that time the Saracens were attacking Sicily, and the commander Olympius went to Sicily, where he also died. Then, by the intrigues of the heretical Patriarch Paul, the emperor sent another commander, Theodore, to bind and bring the Pope under the accusation that he, the Pope, stood in collusion with the Saracens and that he did not honor the Most Pure Mother of God. When the commander arrived in Rome and read the accusation against the Pope, the latter replied that it was slander, that he had no communion whatsoever with the Saracens, the enemies of Christianity, "and as for the Most Pure Mother of God, if anyone does not honor and confess Her and bow down before Her, let him be accursed both in this age and in the age to come." But this did not change the commander's decision. The Pope was bound and brought to Constantinople, where, gravely ill, he lay for a long time in prison, tormented by distress and hunger, until at last he was condemned to exile in Cherson, where he lived for two years and ended his life, surrendering his soul to the Lord, for Whose sake he had suffered greatly, in the year 655. Two years before him the wretched Paul died. And when the emperor visited him before his death, he turned his face to the wall and wept, confessing that he had sinned greatly against Pope Martin, and beseeching the emperor to set Martin free.
