Born in Rzepedź, Second Polish Republic in the Ukrainian family of Ivan and Mariya Harhaj in 1932 and in 1947, together with family, was forced resettlement after Operation Vistula. He was ordained a priest on 24 June 1956 by Roman Catholic Bishop Marian Jankowski. He worked as a Roman Catholic priest, but in 1960th begun to help in the renewed Greek Catholic parishes.[1]