He came from a poor farming family. He had many siblings; two of his sisters became nuns. He graduated from high school at the Piarist school in Szeged. In 1933, he left the country and went to Belgium to stay with relatives; it was then that he changed his name. In 1934, he entered the Barnabite Order. After his novitiate, he studied in Florence, then in Rome from 1936 to 1940, and was ordained a priest on December 25, 1939. In 1943, he transferred to the Oratorian Order. From 1943 to 1945, he served as secretary of the Hungarian Embassy accredited to the Holy See. In 1944, he earned a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University. From 1945 to 1949, as a Vatican delegate, he served as chaplain to Hungarian refugees in Austria. From 1950 to 1961, he was a Hungarian pastor in Bogotá, Colombia. In 1961, he moved to the United States for health reasons, and then settled in Canada in 1967.
He died of cancer after much suffering at the Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital in Toronto and was buried in Welland in accordance with his will.