Calle San Evaristo

The saint who gives this street its name was the fifth successor of Peter at the head of the Church of Rome, around the year 100. Ancient sources make him the son of a Greek-speaking Jew from Bethlehem and credit him with a brief pontificate spanning the first and second centuries. Evaristus is remembered above all for an organizational decision. He divided the city of Rome among the tituli, the churches that served as the core of each district of the faithful, and assigned a priest to each. That division was the embryo of urban parishes as they were later understood. Tradition presents him as a martyr and sets his feast on October 27, though church chroniclers themselves warn that reliable accounts of his life are scarce. Why this saint ended up naming a short Chopera street, beside paseo de la Chopera and a step from Legazpi, has not been documented: one of many dedications to saints scattered across the street directory of southern Madrid.