He was born in the small village of Cisy, baptized in the parish of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord in Narew, in the then Hajnówka County, into a peasant family[1] of Aleksy and Maria Doroszkiewicz, as one of six children.

[12] On 25 March 1960, in the Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene in Warsaw, he accepted episcopal chirotony and was appointed vicar of the Warsaw-Bielsk diocese with the title of Bishop of Bielsko.

In 1962, based on his work on Catholic Mariology in the first half of the 20th century, he received a master's degree in theology, completing his studies that he began before World War II.

[14] In 1962, in a note from the Office for Religious Affairs, bishop Bazyli was described as a "limited" man, with little political experience, associated with the "most devotional" circles of the Church.

[15] In the Wrocław-Szczecin diocese, Bishop Bazyli organized church life among the people who were resettled to the western lands of Poland as a result of Operation Vistula and repatriation from the Eastern Borderlands.

He suggested that the courses could prepare clergy serving in Polish to work in the diocese, which would bring benefits to both the church and the state.

[18] Bishop Bazyli Doroszkiewicz worked to create an Orthodox diocese covering the area of Subcarpathian Voivodeship, which was to constitute a base for missionary activities among Greek Catholic Church followers: Ukrainians and Lemkos.

In the 1960s, he sent several letters to the Office for Religious Affairs, in which he suggested establishing a diocese of Krakow-Rzeszów or Sanok-Przemyśl, which would be headed by, after taking monastic vows, Aleksander Dubec.

[20] The Office for Religious Affairs also found that Bazyli's unfavourable attitude towards the Polish Catholic Episcopate and his support for the ecumenical movement, as well as his understanding of the changes taking place in the world, were in his favor.

[22] According to the researcher Antoni Mironowicz, his election as Metropolitan of Warsaw and all of Poland was a key event in the process of regaining stability by Polish Orthodox Church after World War II.

[23] On 12 October 1970, the metropolitan founded the Polish-speaking parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Wrocław, at that time the only such pastoral institution in Poland.

He was convinced that only the polonization of pastoral care in the diocese would prevent the development of ethnic conflicts in its territory, as well as stop the departure of the faithful to the Catholic Church.

In the same year, the council of bishops, under the direction of the metropolitan, also reorganized the schools run by the church, including the theological seminary in Warsaw.

[23] In the years 1971–1972, the metropolitan corresponded with the Primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszyński, regarding Orthodox-Catholic conflicts over the ownership of religious buildings in Polany, Komańcza and Rokosowo.