Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach was born November 30, 1928, in Druten, a village northwest of Nijmegen, Holland. He attended Canisius College, Nijmegen, for his secondary studies where he concentrated on modern languages. On September 7, 1948, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Mariendaal, Holland. Following philosophy studies, he went to Lebanon. He was ordained a priest in 1961.

After completing his doctoral studies in Armenian in 1967, Kolvenbach taught general and Oriental linguistics at La Haye (Holland), Paris, and the University of Saint Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon, where he also served as minister of Jesuit students. In 1969 he took his final vows and in 1971 he was transferred to the Vice-Province of the Middle East - an area of the world where he would serve for the next decade. In 1974, he became provincial of the Vice Province of the Middle East and concurrently taught general linguistics and Armenian while conducting refugee work in Lebanon. He was appointed to the faculty of the Gregorian University in Rome in 1981 and also served as rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute.