Pál Ruttkay was a Greek Catholic priest of the Diocese of Munkács and a member of the first generation of Hungarian-Rusyn Greek Catholic clergy to emigrate to the United States. After serving in Hungary, he ministered to Hungarian and Rusyn Greek Catholic communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is associated with one of the most significant canonical struggles of the Greek Catholic parish in Monessen, during which he participated in legal proceedings to defend the rights of parishioners who remained in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
He was born on December 4 in Tiszasásvár (now Trosznik, Ukraine). His father was Mihály Ruttkay, a Greek Catholic priest, and his mother was Julianna Szteczovics; thus, he was raised in a priestly family. He completed his theological studies at the Greek Catholic seminary in Uzhhorod. On September 23, 1894, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Gyula Firczák of Munkács. His wife was Gizella Kaminszky (1876–1958), the daughter of Antal Kaminszky, a Greek Catholic priest, and Ilona Vaszócsik.
After his ordination, he served as an assistant pastor in Hajdúdorog from 1894 to 1896. Subsequently, in 1896, he was appointed parish priest of Latorcafő, where he carried out his pastoral ministry for nearly a decade and a half. Around the turn of the century, like many priests in the Diocese of Munkács, he kept a close eye on the rapidly growing communities of Greek Catholic faithful who had emigrated to the United States, as they requested an increasing number of priests from the mother diocese.
He emigrated to the United States in late 1910 or 1911. His first known place of ministry in the United States was Monessen, Pennsylvania, where he served as pastor of the Greek Catholic parish dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Contemporary directories of clergy already list him among the parish priests of Monessen as early as 1912.
In 1913, he moved to New Salem, Pennsylvania, and then served in Hazleton in 1914. Subsequently, he served as parish priest in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. During those years, the Greek Catholic Church in the United States did not yet have its own diocese, and immigrant priests strove to organize pastoral care for Hungarian, Ruthenian, and Slovak parishioners under extremely difficult circumstances. The communities often struggled simultaneously with financial difficulties, ethnic tensions, and jurisdictional disputes.
One of the most significant events of his career was the ecclesiastical conflict that unfolded around the Monessen parish. A portion of the community wished to join the Orthodox Church, while Pál Ruttkay and his followers remained committed to unity with the Roman Catholic Church. The case eventually reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In the case of Kicinko v. Petruska, Pál Ruttkay appeared among the plaintiffs as the pastor of the Catholic community. The court ruled that the church property belonged to the Greek Catholic parish, thereby setting an important precedent for resolving the legal status of Greek Catholic communities in the United States.
In 1921, he was assigned to the Greek Catholic parish in Leisenring, and then served again in Monessen from 1922 to 1923. He also participated in national conferences of the American Greek Catholic clergy when the issue of establishing an independent American church organization was on the agenda. These developments ultimately led to the establishment of the Greek Catholic Exarchate of Pittsburgh in 1924.
His final place of ministry was Farrell, Pennsylvania, where he served as parish priest beginning in 1923. He died there in 1924. The exact date of his death cannot be determined with complete certainty from currently available sources.