Jerzy Białłozor

Identity

Jerzy Białłozor was a canon and custos of the Vilnius cathedral chapter and a notary of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's treasury. During the Muscovite war and Swedish invasion he took part in negotiations over Lithuania's future. He was not a secular magnate named Kazimierz: historian Henryk Wisner explicitly corrects that error by comparing older editions with the original act.¹

Kėdainiai in August and October 1655

He signed the August conditions of Lithuania's submission to the Swedish king. For the final agreement of 20 October, he also purported to act on behalf of the bishop of Vilnius and the diocesan clergy. That mattered politically: a cleric's signature could imply church consent to the new regime. In February 1656, however, the cathedral chapter disputed his authority to speak for it. Bishop Jerzy Tyszkiewicz had already declined to sign, considering Swedish guarantees for Catholicism inadequate.¹

Later career and a source error

He became bishop of Smolensk in 1658 and of Vilnius in 1661. Older copies called him “Kazimierz Białozor” and described him as archdeacon and diocesan administrator. Wisner shows that the original signature gives Jerzy, the custos. This page and the timeline therefore use Jerzy; the old address redirects here.¹²

Novel and film

His role reveals the church politics behind Lithuania's decisions, which sit outside the central action of Sienkiewicz's The Deluge. We found no separate Białłozor role in Hoffman's film cast.³