Vasyl Velychkovsky was born on June 1, 1903 at Stanislaviv (modern Ivano-Frankivsk) in Austria-Hungary to an Ukrainian Greek Catholic family. In 1920, Vasyl entered the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer) — the Byzantine-rite Ukrainian branch.
Ordained priest in 1925, Vasyl served in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic ministry until the 1945 Soviet takeover of Western Ukraine.
In 1945, the Soviet government suppressed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church at the Lviv 'Pseudo-Council' — forcibly 'reuniting' the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church with the Russian Orthodox Church under Soviet direction.
Vasyl refused to accept the 1946 forced reunion. Arrested in 1945, Vasyl was condemned to 10 years in the Soviet gulag system.
Released in 1955, Vasyl undertook the underground Ukrainian Greek Catholic ministry across the Soviet Union. In 1963, Vasyl was secretly consecrated Bishop of Lutsk by the underground Ukrainian Greek Catholic hierarchy.
Arrested again in 1969, Vasyl was subjected to systematic poisoning by the KGB — the documented Soviet-era poisoning of the Ukrainian Catholic bishop.
In 1972, Vasyl was deported from the Soviet Union. Vasyl travelled to Rome and then to Winnipeg, Canada — where he died on June 30, 1973 from the poisoning-related complications.
Beatified June 27, 2001 by Pope St. John Paul II at Lviv, Ukraine — with 27 other Ukrainian Greek Catholic Soviet-era martyrs.