Levytsky was born on November 18, 1859, in the settlement of Tysmenytsia of today's Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast into the family of a Greek Catholic priest.

Kost Levytsky took active part in public and political life in his student years, he was one of the leaders of Academic Fraternity, the Circle of Law.

He united his professional activity with that in the sphere of Ukrainian enterprises, he was a co-founder and leading figure in the economic associations Zorya, People's trade, Dniester, Province Credit Union.

After the Soviet Army invasion of Poland, in September 1939 (according to the secret part of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), he was arrested by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and incarcerated in Lubyanka prison in Moscow.

After the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, an independent Ukrainian State was proclaimed on June 30, 1941.

He worked to curb the excesses of the occupational regime, carried on negotiations with the administration of Distrikt Galizien, petitioned to end groundless repressions, and pleaded for the release of prisoners, often with positive results.