In 1938, was prob. the parish priest of the Orthodox parish of Mogilnica, c. 20 km from Chełm. The authorities of independent Poland then carried out i.a. in the Chełm region a Polonization and restitution campaign aimed at limiting Orthodoxy, which was considered one of the strongholds of Russian and Commie‐Nazi influence in Poland. As a result, up to 127 Orthodox churches were demolished, sometimes desecrated, subjecting priests and faithful to persecution. Polish President Lech Kaczyński said in 2008: „We must express regret for the evil that has been done”. The church in Moglinica was demolished on 11.07.1938.

Moved then to the parish of Złazno, in the Rivne county of Volyn voivodeship. Złazno, on the Horyn River, was a large village inhabited by an estimated 2,800 people, c. 95% Ukrainians of the Orthodox faith, c. 5%, i.e. c. 140 Jews, and prob. a few or a dozen Poles.

He also ministered there during the Russian occupation, after the German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and the beginning of World War II, when the Russian occupation authorities forcibly incorporated all Orthodox priests into the Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941 on their erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the beginning of the German occupation, the village became part of the Germ. Bezirk Kostopol (Eng. Kostopil County) in the Germ. Generalbezirk Wolhynien–Podolien (Eng. General District Volyn‐Podolia) of the German‐occupied entity Germ. Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Eng. Reich Commissariat Ukraine).

It is not clear which faction of the Orthodox Church joined. One of these was the Autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church AUOC, the canonical proclamation of which was announced on 18.08.1941, by the synod of Ukrainian Orthodox bishops in Pochayiv Lavra. The AUOC strove for autocephaly, i.e. independence, but recognizing the supremacy of the Moscow Patriarchate. On 08‐10.02.1942, however, another group of Orthodox bishops announced the establishment of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church UAOC, under the auspices of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church PAOC, which in turn, as early as 1940, had made an act of loyalty to the German genocide killer Hans Frank, Germ. Generalgouverneur (Eng. General Governor) of the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG. In the territory of the Germ. Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the bishops of the UAOC considered themselves the successors of the PAOC, whose autocephaly had been granted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The two sides were in strong conflict when in 02.1943 Roman Shukhevych, nom de guerre „Taras Chuprynka”, the chief commander of the Ukrainian, genocidal OUN/UPA organisation, who in 1941 was a member of the Ukrainian Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall (Eng. Special Group Nightingale) — a unit of the Germ. Wehrmacht (Eng. Armed Forces) that took part in the German attack on Russians in 1941, accused of participating in the Jewish pogrom in Lviv in 1941 — and later a member of the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201 (Eng. 201st Protection team Battalion) — responsible for the murder of Jews and civilians in the territory of Belarus — issued an order: „The extermination operation should be carried out according to the following principles: Polish villages are to be burned, and their populations massacred. Attacks on towns will take place in broad daylight, not at night. In mixed villages, the Polish population alone should be liquidated, and farmsteads should be burned only if they are 15 meters away and when there is no risk of the fire spreading to neighboring Ukrainian buildings. The Ukrainian population will receive instructions as to where to gather during the attack […] For every Ukrainian murdered, whether by Poles or Germans, 100 (one hundred) Poles will be executed”.

It was the de facto signal for the commencement of the «Genocidium Atrox» — i.e. the genocide perpetrated by Ukrainians, known as „Volyn genocide”.

Immediately afterwards, in 03.1943, the UPA issued an appeal addressed to members of the collaborative German Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma, which participated in the implementation of the German genocidal plan of the Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Final Solution of the Jewish Question) — i.a. participated in the extermination of Jews from the town of Derazne, located c. 15 km to the southwest, where a ghetto was established as early as 05.10.1941, in which the Germans gathered Jews from Derazne and the surrounding area, including prob. from Złazno; then, on 25.08.1942, with the help of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, they gathered c. 1,868 Jews and drove them c. 25 km to the east, across the bridge over the Horyn River, c. 5 km from Złazno, through the settlement of Janowa Dolina, near Kostopil, where they were shot in the local forests; in the autumn of 1942, the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei organized a series of raids on hiding Jews, during which they caught c. 152 people, and murdered them near Derazne — to desert and join the UPA. Perhaps as many as 10,000 Ukrainians did so.

The tactics of the genocidal Ukrainians were detailed in an order issued a little later, in 06.1943, by the UPA commander in Volyn, Dmytro Klachkivsky nom de guerre „Klym Savur”. Anticipating Germany's defeat in the war with Russia, explained and ordered: „We should carry out a major operation to eliminate the Polish element. When the German troops withdraw, we should use this opportune moment to eliminate the entire male population aged 16 to 60 […] We cannot lose this fight, and we must weaken Polish forces at all costs. Forest villages and villages located near forest massifs should disappear from the face of the earth”.

And it was then, in 03.1943, in Złazno and the surrounding area, that Ukrainians murdered c. 30 Poles. Their bodies were recovered, i.a. from the Horyn River. Next on 23‐24.04.1943, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, OUN/UPA genocide perpetrators, reinforced by deserters from the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, attacked the settlement of Janowa Dolina, on the opposite side of the Horyn River. Janowa Dolina was founded in the 1920s as a workers" settlement near a basalt mine. It was inhabited by c. 3,000 people, mainly Poles — including several hundred refugees from Ukrainian attacks in early 1943. Genocide perpetrators, prob. on the orders of „Klym Savur” himself, burned the bridge connecting Złazno with Janowa Dolina and blocked the railway line. Then they massacred the Polish population. The victims were murdered with knives, axes, pitchforks, and bullets from firearms, tied to trees and burned alive, and children were impaled on stakes. C. 600 Poles were murdered, although some sources say as many as 2,000.

In response, the Germans brought to Janowa Dolina the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 202 (Eng. 202nd Protection team Battalion), commanded by the Germans but consisting mainly of Poles from the GG, recruited under the guise of fighting „banditry”, i.e. Russian partisans, in the „new eastern territories”, i.e. in the occupied Polish eastern voivodeships. Sources say that members of the battalion, „shocked by the images of their fellow countrymen being murdered [by Ukrainians]”, began to defend them, even against German orders. They began to conduct „spontaneous retaliatory actions, attacking Ukrainian villages”. Perhaps the short entry in some sources about the „pacification of Złazno” by the battalion refers to such an action. In 11.1943, more than half of the battalion deserted, probably joining the Polish self‐defense in Volyn.

For Volyn was being drenched in Polish blood. Tens of thousands of Poles were murdered by the Ukrainians — with German passivity — in an extremely barbaric manner. Hundreds of villages were burned.

In early 1944, it became clear that the German occupation was ending. On 24.12.1943, a major Russian offensive, known as the Dnieper–Carpathian Operation, began. Then, on 20‐21.01.1944, talks took place in Złazno between the representatives of the Germ. Wehrmacht (Eng. Armed Forces) and one of the genocidal OUN/UPA groups. It was agreed that the OUN/UPA would continue fighting against Russian partisans and front‐line troops and would provide intelligence to the Germans. In the Złaźno area, this cooperation did not however last long, as the Russians captured Złazno on c. 30.01.1944. The Russian occupation began.

Yet the OUN/UPA continued its criminal and genocidal activities for several more years. After the extermination of the Poles, it directed its efforts against the Russian occupier.

And then, on 22.10.1944, was murdered prob. by the OUN/UPA, under unknown circumstances.

Reports from local OUN cells at the time indicated a low level of „Ukrainization of church life” in many localities, and local OUN/UPA formations were entrusted with the task of „improving Ukrainization”. Perhaps revealed himself then as a supporter of the AUOC, which recognized the supremacy of the Moscow Patriarchate, which the OUN/UPA considered a betrayal of the Ukrainian character of Orthodoxy, as expressed by the UAOC — although the sources contain no information about his stance during the German occupation or the genocide of Jews and Poles, which could prove the thesis advanced here.

On 12.10.2007, the génocidaire Roman Shukhevych was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. In 12.2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in a resolution, recognized génocidaire Dmitry Klachkivsky as „the leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Volyn and a participant in the struggle for Ukraine's independence in the 20th century”. In several locations, monuments and commemorative plaques have been erected to these Lat. „hostis humani generis”, the schools were named after them. To this day, the Ukrainian state has not exhumed those murdered in Janowa Dolina (today Bazaltowe), but in the center of this settlement there is a UPA monument commemorating the genocidal „combat action” of 21‐22.04.1943. As the inscription says, an OUN/UPA unit liquidated the base of the „Polish‐German occupiers of Volyn” at that time. When the Poles tried to unveil the monument to the murdered, „the Ukrainian contractor removed, without the knowledge of the commissioners, the date ok 23.04.1943”, leaving only the inscription „In memory of the Poles from Janowa Dolina”.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”