MARTIN, KONRAD. — Bishop, b. 18 May 1812 at Geismar (Eichsfeld), d. 16 July 1879 at Mont-St-Guibert (Belgium). Appointed bishop of Paderborn in 1856, he engaged in tireless apostolic activity. In 1857 he founded a second seminary for boys at Heiligenstadt, and in 1859 the Theological Boarding School at Paderborn. He also devoted himself intensively to the development of the Boniface Society, which he presided over from 1859 to 1875.
At the First Vatican Council he was a member of the deputation pro fide and of the commission pro postulatis, and was among the strongest supporters of papal infallibility. During the Kulturkampf he fought energetically against the enforcement of the May Laws. Arrested in Aug. 1874 by the Prussian authorities, and declared deprived of his episcopal dignity the following January, he was assigned the town of Wesel as his official place of residence. He was again sentenced to six months in prison for having conferred jurisdictional authority upon four priests. M. fled in time to Holland, from where he went to Belgium, to Mont-St-Guibert, where, under another name, he served as rector until his death of a boarding institution for girls founded by Paulina Mallinckrodt.