Sant'Egidio (church)

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Sant'Egidio is a church in Rome, in the Trastevere neighbourhood.

The church was founded in 1630 and was abandoned by the nuns in 1971. In 1973, it was occupied by the Community of Sant'Egidio, which had been founded in 1968, and was still looking for a meeting place of its own. The community, which had not had a name before, then chose to name itself after its church.

The church of Sant'Egidio hosted the daily evening prayer of the community until 1999, when it was first renovated and then became too small for the numerous attendants. The community now holds its main evening prayer in Santa Maria in Trastevere and uses the church of Sant'Egidio as a place where its members can retire for personal prayer.

Together with the adjacent former Carmelite monastery, the church forms the seat of the community of Sant'Egidio. The monastery has been visited by Pope John Paul II, Ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I and Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. It was the venue of the signature of the Rome General Peace Accords in 1992, ending Mozambique's civil war and of the Sant'Egidio platform in 1995, a proposal to end the Algerian Civil War.