Sivarama Swami is an internationally acknowledged religious leader, theologian, author of 23 books and dozens of articles, and an environmental and human rights activist.

He was born in 1949 in Budapest, Hungary, to Pal and Magda, survivors of the Holocaust. His family’s trauma has largely contributed to Sivarama Swami’s sensitivity to human rights issues throughout his life.

In 1973 he joined the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a dynamic organisation representing Vaishnavism, and became a disciple of ISKCON’s Founder-Acharya, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Six years later, at age 29, he entered a life of  renunciation and was awarded the order of sannyasa (celibate monk). In 1987 he was ordained as an initiating spiritual master in the Vaishnava denomination.

Sivarama Swami has served his spiritual master’s mission by opening and managing temples and communities in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey, while also serving as a member of ISKCON’s international Governing Body Commission since 1986. In the late 1980’s, he began to visit and teach in his native Soviet-dominated Hungary.  Incognito, and despite continued harassment  from communist police, he helped lead a group of young ISKCON devotees through the country’s transition to democracy, and in turn, was instrumental in guiding devotees in changing Parliamentary legislation against religion.Despite these changes, however, basic democratic norms in Eastern Europe still were not to be taken for granted. In the ensuing 25 years, Sivarama Swami led several international campaigns against religious and minority discrimination, helping communities of various denominations achieve recognition and freedom in Europe.