Martin I

Pope Matin I was the last pope to be a martyr.  It happened it 655.  At that time, the newly elected pope was supposed to get the approval of the emperor.  Martin did not, but rather condemned as heresy something that the emperor, Constans II accepted and believed in.  Constans got upset, as potentates tend to do when authority is not respected.  So Martin was dragged from Rome to Constans.  Martin was starved, tortured, imprisoned and then exiled.  He died soon thereafter.  History said that emperors trumped popes.  History changes.  About a century or so later, 800 AD, Charlemagne was chosen as emperor, or defeated the opposition.  He decided that it would behoove him to get approval from the pope.  Off the emperor goes to Rome to get crowned by the pope.  Things change.  Big issues may not be so unchangeable.  Often there was a time when they did not even exist as they are now.  Do not despair.  I think of it as, "God working."