Ivan Chodkiewicz

Ivan Chodkiewicz (Lithuanian: Jonas Ivanas Chodkevičius; c. 1420 – 1484)[1] was a Lithuanian-Ruthenian noble from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Ivan died in captivity while his wife, daughter Agrafena, and son Aleksander Chodkiewicz were ransomed and continued the family line.

Traditionally, historiography states that Ivan Chodkiewicz first appears in written sources in 1453 as a member of a Lithuanian delegation sent to the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland in Parczew.

[5] Around this time he married Jawnuta (Agnieszka) Belska, daughter of Ivan Vladimirovich Belsky [ru] and first cousin of Casimir IV.

[6][nb 1] On 12 October 1474, Ivan Chodkiewicz commanded Lithuanian troops in a battle near Wrocław (Breslau) against Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

[7] Ivan, his otherwise unknown brother Pavel, and eleven other Ruthenian nobles signed a letter to Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, authored by Miseal (Misail Pstruch), Metropolitan of Kiev.

This upset dynastic interest of the Olelkovych and Belsky families, who could claim ancestry from the ruling Gediminid dynasty and Princes of Kiev.