This took a long time, and Almighty God did not permit him to accomplish what he was trying to do. Seeing then that he was overcome by the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God, he thought it necessary to veil his bad intention, and to accomplish what he had not been able to do with the armed hand in heretical fashion at mass in the Church of God’s Holy Mother, the Ever-virgin Mary, at the Crib. For while the holy Pope was giving him communion he had instructed one of his guards to murder him. But, Almighty God, who is wont to protect His orthodox servants, and to deliver them from all evil, Himself blinded the eyes of the swordsman of the exarch Olympius, and he was not allowed to see the Pontiff at the moment of giving communion, or the kiss of peace, that he might shed his blood and subject to heresy the Catholic Church of God. The soldier attested this afterwards on his oath to several. So Olympius, seeing that the hand of God protected the holy Pope Martin, thought it necessary to agree with him, and to disclose the commands which he had received. Then having made peace with the Church, he collected his army and went to Sicily against the Saracens who were there. And through the sin a great destruction fell on the Roman army, and then the exarch died of disease.” In the Council of the Lateran, held by Pope Martin in 649, the Pope carefully examined the whole history and documents concerning the attempt of the patriarch Sergius, and the emperor Heraclius, and the succeeding patriarchs at Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch, to alter the faith of the Church. The imperial documents, the Ecthesis of Heraclius, composed by Sergius, the Typus of Constans II. composed by the sitting patriarch, Paulus, both of them one after the other imposed by violence on the eastern episcopate, letters from many bishops, documents, in fact, of every kind, were subjected to careful reading. The Council drew up twenty canons which it imposed under anathema. The Pope at the head of the Bishops, subscribed in these words: “I, Martin, by the grace of God, Bishop of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the City of Rome, ordain and subscribe this definition, confirmatory of the orthodox faith, and condemning Sergius, formerly Bishop of Constantinople, Cyrus, Bishop of Alexandria, Theodorus, Bishop, Pyrrhus, and Paulus, also, Bishop of Constantinople, together with their heretical writings”. Then follow the signatures of the Bishops of Italy, the Archbishop of Aquileia and Grado first, the Archbishop of Milan adding his assent afterwards.