The feast day of St. Martin I is celebrated on April 13.
St. Martin was born in Tuscany, Italy in 316. He became a deacon serving in Rome. In the year 649 he was chosen as the 74th pope.
Pope Martin called the Lateran Council which condemned the heresy of Monothelitism, which claims Christ had no human will. The Lateran Council explained the two natures of Christ: both human and divine. This position put him in opposition to Paul the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Pope Martin was kidnapped while he was sick from the Lateran Basilica. He was tortured and imprisoned. He was condemned to death but at the last moment he was saved from execution by the repentance of the Patriarch. He was imprisoned instead and then exiled to an island which was suffering from a famine.
Pope Martin soon died in 655 from the effects of the torture and imprisonment. Pope Martin I is last martyred Pope.
The trees stand as though dead, but these, though lifeless in the winter, are green in the spring, for God, knowing your disbelief, each year effects a resurrection in these visible things, that seeing what occurs in inanimate creatures, you may believe concerning the animate rational beings.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem; Feast day March 18
April is the Month of the Eucharist