October 27

Saint Evaristus

Roman Martyrology

Led the church of Rome around the year 100, soon after the apostles

Evaristus led the Christian community in Rome around the year 100, only a generation after the apostles Peter and Paul. Very little about his life is certain. Irenaeus of Lyon, writing some eighty years later, names him in his list of Rome’s bishops as the fourth after the apostles, following Clement. The historian Eusebius places his years of leadership in the reign of the emperor Trajan.

Later sources add more. The Liber Pontificalis, compiled centuries afterwards, says he was a Greek, the son of a Jewish father from Bethlehem, and that he divided Rome’s churches among its priests. Tradition also calls him a martyr. Historians treat these details with caution.

He would have led a small community at a time when Christians could be punished simply for their name, and when those who had known the apostles were dying out. Even with so little known, he is remembered as one of the links that carried the faith on to later generations.

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but because it is God’s will; not out of greed, but out of eagerness; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

1 Peter 5:2–4 · BSB

A prayer

Faithful God, in the years after the apostles you gave your Church in Rome a shepherd in Evaristus, who cared for your people in a time of danger and uncertainty. Help us to guard the faith we have received, to care for one another, and to pass it on faithfully to those who come after us. Amen.