János Skrapits was born on November 3, 1925, in Szentpéterfa. Little information is available about the period of his life spent in Hungary. He became a priest in the Diocese of Szombathely; sources give differing years for his ordination—1951 and 1953, respectively—so the exact date requires further clarification.

After his ordination, he left the country. In Austria, he provided pastoral care to Hungarian refugees living in the Bregenz area, and then moved to the United States.

He continued his ministry in the United States in New York State. Initially, he served as an assistant pastor, and in 1969, he became the pastor of St. Elizabeth Hungarian Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo. The parish was located at 986 Grant Street, and a contemporary directory of Hungarian-American organizations lists János Skrapits by name as the church’s liaison.

He served the Hungarian community in Buffalo for more than three decades, until his death. Attila Miklósházy, S.J., the bishop for Hungarians abroad, was a direct witness to his work as a pastor; he visited the Hungarian parish in Buffalo in 1996. In his recollection, he unequivocally identified János Skrapits as the pastor of the Hungarian church, noting that László Juhász, S.J., assisted him in his work.

Through his long ministry in Buffalo, Skrapits became a leading pastor of the local Hungarian Catholic community. His tenure coincided with a period when, following the wave of refugees in 1956, assimilation, an aging population, and the difficulties of maintaining Hungarian-language church life gradually came to the fore in American Hungarian communities. Nevertheless, even in the 1990s, St. Elizabeth Parish was still listed as an independent Hungarian institution in the registry of American Hungarian organizations.

János Skrapits passed away on March 29, 2000, in Kenmore, New York, at the age of 74.