[1] Born into a Cossack family of Moldavian origin, Danylo Apostol was a prominent military leader, polkovnyk (colonel) of the Myrhorod Regiment, and a participant in the Russian campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate.

He fought in the Great Northern War between 1701 and 1705 against the Swedes in Livonia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but in 1708, briefly joined the hetman Ivan Mazepa who sided with Charles XII of Sweden against Peter I of Russia.

Danylo Apostol lost his eye during the capture of a Persian fortress in Derbent that led to him receiving the nickname "blind Hetman".

In the 1723–1725 Cossack starshyna, Danylo Apostol was accused of being involved in the alleged mutiny plot of hetman Pavlo Polubotok and was suspected of treason by Catherine I.

Apostol's grandson Joachim A. Gorlenko (1705–1754), the son of his daughter Maria, entered the priesthood of the Russian Orthodox Church and became Joasaph of Belgorod, who was glorified as a saint in 1911.