Imre Kozma was born on 4 June 1940 in Győrzámoly. He graduated from the Benedictine secondary school in Győr, then entered seminary. He was ordained in 1963. His first post was in Tát-Dorogbánya, then he was transferred to Budapest. Between 1968 and 1977 he served in the Church of St. Peter of Alcantara, on Franciscans’ Square in central Budapest. His unusual, outspoken sermons appealed to many, and the church was packed to capacity during his talks at a conference for young adults.

The next stage of his career was the parish church of the Holy Family in Zugliget, a suburb of Budapest. In his sermons and catechism lessons, attended by hundreds of people, he taught what became one of the mottos of his life: that Christianity is not theory but praxis – a Gramscian thought that contradicted the popular view held about the Church in those times – that it is outside outside the walls of the church we must live our faith, in actions in everyday life. The members of his community were mandated to undertake concrete charitable and social tasks, and it was then that the volunteer network was formed, which later formed the basis of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.

As the founding president of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta (MMSZ), established in 1989, he organised care for the poor, the elderly and the homeless. During the momentous summer of 1989 – still under Communist rule and not without risk –  he opened in his parish garden the first refugee camp for East German refugee families gathering in Budapest in transit through the breached Iron Curtain, launching the largest humanitarian operation in Europe at the time, which welcomed 48,000 refugees to Hungary. During the Romanian Revolution, he delivered aid to needy settlements, and during the South Slavic war, he resettled hospital wards, residential institutions and large numbers of civilians in Hungary. Hundreds of volunteers responded to his calls, while local groups of MMSZ were set up across the country. In three and a half decades, the organisation has become one of the largest civil society organisations in Hungary, building up a network of social, educational and health care services, caring for an average of 17,000 people a day in its institutions and volunteer groups.

Father Kozma joined the Sovereign Order of Malta as Magistral Chaplain in 1990, rising to the rank of Conventual Chaplain Grand Cross ad honorem in 2009. In 1997, Father Imre Kozma asked to be admitted to the Barmherzige Brüder monastic order, which under his leadership grew from strength to strength and became a major player in health care through its hospitals. He became a monk at the age of fifty-seven, by which time most people are already planning their retirement, but he set his sights on reviving Christian medicine and led the order’s national organisation until the age of 82.