Richard Hardi was born in Budapest in 1958, the fourth child in a family of six. He attended school in his native city until the age of 15 when his father took a job in Algeria, and he moved there with his parents and three siblings. The five years he spent in the town of Constantine left a deep impression on him. It was during that time that his attraction to Africa developed. On his return to Hungary he embarked on his medical studies, which he completed ten years later at the hospital in Tatabánya, specializing in ophthalmology. After his final exam, he joined the Community of the Beatitudes, which had long been seeking an ophthalmologist for the Kabinda hospital in the then Zaire.
On his arrival in Kabinda in 1995, Brother Richard was confronted with the appalling conditions of the poorly equipped hospital and the lack of doctors.