Evaristus was born in Greece of a Jewish father. Leaving his native town at a very early age, he went to Rome to study and distinguished himself by his piety and learning. When he succeeded Pope Saint Clement I to the See of Peter he ordered that marriages should be celebrated publicly and with priestly benediction, and that no bishop should preach without the assistance of seven deacons. In three or four ordinations he created 5 bishops, 6 (or according to some authors 17) priests and 2 deacons. He governed the Church 9 years and 3 months. Evaristus was martyred in 109 AD during the reign of Trajan and was interred in the Vatican cemetery near Saint Peter and his other successors.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The Beloved Disciple had just received the long-promised visit of our Lord inviting him to Heaven when the Church under Evaristus completed the drawing up of the itinerary for her long pilgrimage to the end of time. The blessed period of the apostolic times was definitively closed but the Eternal City continued to augment her treasure of glory. Under this pontificate the virgin Domitilla, by her martyrdom, cemented the foundations of the new Jerusalem with the blood of the Flavii who had destroyed the old. Then Ignatius of Antioch brought to the Church that presides in charity, the testimony of his death. He was the wheat of Christ, and the teeth of the wild beasts in the Colosseum satisfied his desire of becoming a most pure bread.
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You are the first Pontiff to whom the Church entrusted after the departure of all those who had seen the Lord. The world could then say in all strictness: “If we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we know Him so no longer” (2 Corinthians v. 16). The Church was now more truly an exile. At that period, which was not without perils and anxieties, her Spouse gave to you the charge of teaching her to pursue alone her path of faith and hope and love. And you did not betray the confidence of our Lord. Earth owes you on this account a special gratitude, O Evaristus, and a special reward is doubtless yours. Watch still over Rome and the Church. Teach us that we might be ready not only to fast here on Earth, but to resigned to the absence of the Bridegroom when He hides Himself, and not the less to serve Him and love Him with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength, as long as the world endures and He is pleased to leave us in it.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
In Africa, the holy martyrs Rogatian, priest, and Felicissimus, who received the bright crown of martyrs in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus. They are mentioned by St. Cyprian in his Epistle to the Confessors.
At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Lucian, Florius and their companions.
The same day, St. Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage. By the Arian king Genseric, he and his clergy were put on board of leaking boats without oars or sails, but beyond all expectations he landed at Naples and there in exile died a confessor.
At Narbonne, St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor, who flourished in the time of the emperors Valentinian and Leo.
At Salerno, St. Gaudiosus, bishop.
At Pavia, St. Fulk, bishop.
At Hildesheim in Saxony, St. Bernward, bishop and confessor, who was ranked among the saints by Pope Celestine III.
Also St. Quadragesimus, sub-deacon, who raised a dead man to life.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
