Born into a Banat Swabian family in Măureni (Moritzfeld), Caraș-Severin County, he was the twelfth of thirteen children and his father was a shoemaker.
[6] In February 1934, alarmed by rising Nazi sentiment among the Swabians of his diocese, he visited Adolf Hitler, receiving a polite reply to his complaints but no concrete action.
[7] Beginning in 1948, the authorities of the new communist regime took a series of repressive measures: abrogating the concordat; abolishing Pacha's diocese and forcing him to retire; shutting down monasteries and religious schools; seizing the seminary and its assets, as well as the bishop's palace; arresting and torturing numerous priests.
Pacha made public a letter written by the Pope that denounced communism, and also rejected the regime's attempt to fashion a compliant Catholic Church, making him the subject of close supervision by the Securitate secret police.
[9] At a show trial involving other clergymen in Bucharest in September 1950, he was accused of being an American and Vatican spy and of Nazi sympathies, his visit to Hitler being brought up.