His parents were First Lieutenant Andor Mensáros of Nagykerek and Ilona Angyal of Sikabony. His cousin was the actor László Mensáros. He began his high school studies in Pécs at the Cistercian Order’s Nagy Lajos High School (grades 1–5), continued at the Theological Preparatory School in Zirc (6th grade), and completed them at the Benedictine High School in Pannonhalma. He secretly joined the order on February 15, 1953, and took his first vows on June 30, 1954. From 1953 to 1956, he was a music teacher in Budapest. He left the country in 1956. From 1956 to 1963, he studied theology in Rome at the Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo, where he earned a doctorate in theology. He took his perpetual vows at the Abbey of Casamari in Italy on January 1, 1960. He was ordained a priest in Innsbruck on June 26, 1960. He moved to the United States in 1963. He earned a doctorate in music in 1967 and a doctorate in humanities in 1970, as well as a master’s degree in Spanish from Southern Methodist University. In 1983, he left the order, and on June 1 of that same year, he married Karen A. Chenault in a civil ceremony in Dallas, TX. His ashes were scattered near his home in Forbes Park, Colorado, and on nearby Blanca Peak.

L’Abbé de Rancé et la Règle Bénédictine. In. Analecta Cisterciensia 22 (1966), 161–217.