HISTORY OF SAINT MARTIN
We need to distinguish our Patron Saint, St. Martins (died 655) form another Martins of Tours (319 – 397 AD). The former i.e our patron Saint, was a pope whose feast day is November 12. While the latter was bishop whose Feast falls on the previous day, i.e November 11. And it was in recognition of this that our Church fathers elected to dedicated this present edifice on Saturday 12 November 1996, Consequently, the edifice was consecrated by the Most Reverend Cecil John Patterson DD, Archbishop of west Africa He was assisted the Rt. Rev. Bara Hart (Diocesan and the Rt. Rev. H.A.I. Afanya (Assistant bishop).
St. Martin became the bishop in July 649. He is the last of the popes who is venerated as a martyr.
Martin hailed from Todi in Tuscany. In his youth, he dedicated himself to the Church as the lector, and later as a Deacon. Because of his Virtues. He was elected as successor to Pope Theodore in AD) 649.
Martins defended the orthodox Christian faith and condemned tow imperial decrease that supports heterodoxy. This act brought about his persecution by Emperor Constance. He has thus whisked away and imprisoned in captivity at Naxos where he was harshly treated, he became sick and carried away on a stretcher to Constantinople, the imperial city in 654. There he was publicly stripped if his Episcopal robes, and his tunic was stripped from top to bottom. Loaded with chains he was condemned to death, but at the plea of the Patriarch Pyrrhus (on May 1, 655), his sentence was commuted to exile. He left Constantinople on May 26, 655 for the Crimea. Between June and September, he wrote letters to a friend in Constantinople complaining pathetically that all his friends and even the Church of Rome had abandoned him. “For forty days,to vomit,” he wrote, “I have not been given water to wash in. I am frozen through and wasting away with dysentery. The food vomit. But God sees all things and I trust in him” He eventually succumbed on September 16, 655.
Martin hailed from Todi in Tuscany. In his youth, he dedicated himself to the Church as the lector, and later as a Deacon. Because of his Virtues. He was elected as successor to Pope Theodore in AD) 649.
Martins defended the orthodox Christian faith and condemned tow imperial decrease that supports heterodoxy. This act brought about his persecution by Emperor Constance. He has thus whisked away and imprisoned in captivity at Naxos where he was harshly treated, he became sick and carried away on a stretcher to Constantinople, the imperial city in 654. There he was publicly stripped if his Episcopal robes, and his tunic was stripped from top to bottom. Loaded with chains he was condemned to death, but at the plea of the Patriarch Pyrrhus (on May 1, 655), his sentence was commuted to exile. He left Constantinople on May 26, 655 for the Crimea. Between June and September, he wrote letters to a friend in Constantinople complaining pathetically that all his friends and even the Church of Rome had abandoned him. “For forty days,to vomit,” he wrote, “I have not been given water to wash in. I am frozen through and wasting away with dysentery. The food vomit. But God sees all things and I trust in him” He eventually succumbed on September 16, 655.
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