Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did Mar Yohannan VIII Hormizd live?
Mar Yohannan VIII Hormizd (often referred to by European missionaries as John Hormez or Hanna Hormizd) (1760–1838) was the last hereditary patriarch of the Eliya line of the Church of the East and the first patriarch of a united Chaldean Church. After succeeding his uncle Eliya XII Denha in 1780 as patriarch of Mosul, he made a Catholic profession of faith and was recognised in 1783 by the Vatican as patriarchal administrator and archbishop of Mosul. His career as patriarchal administrator was controversial, and was marked by a series of conflicts with his own bishops and also with the Vatican. Suspended from his functions in 1812 and again in 1818, he was reinstated by the Vatican in 1828. In 1830, following the death of the Amid patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, he was recognised by the Vatican as patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans and the Mosul and Amid patriarchates were united under his leadership. This event marked the birth of the since unbroken patriarchal line of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Yohannan Hormizd died in 1838 and his successor Nicholas I Zay<i about="#mwt2" data-mw='{"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"transl","href":"./Template:Transl"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"ar"},"2":{"wt":"DIN"},"3":{"wt":"ʿ"}},"i":0}}]}' data-parsoid='{"stx":"html","dsr":[1989,2008,null,null],"pi":[[{"k":"1"},{"k":"2"},{"k":"3"}]]}' lang="ar-Latn" title="DIN 31635 Arabic (Arabic language) transliteration" typeof="mw:Transclusion">ʿ</i>a was chosen by the Vatican, ending the centuries-old practice of hereditary succession in the Eliya line of the Church of the East.
Yohannan Hormizd himself wrote a polemical autobiography in Syriac, a fragment of which (breaking off in 1795) was translated into English by the Anglican missionary George Percy Badger and reproduced in his classic 1852 study of the Church of the East, The Nestorians and Their Rituals.[1] His opponents responded with an equally intemperate history of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd under the headship of Gabriel Dambo of Mardin (1775–1832), which was published in a French translation by M. Brière in 1910 and 1911.[2] Both texts provide spirited accounts of the intrigues that followed Yohannan's election as patriarch in 1780. Neither can be trusted on matters of interpretation, but if read judiciously they shed valuable light on the politics of the Chaldean Church in the late eighteenth- and early-nineteenth centuries and provide a wealth of factual detail omitted in many accounts of this period.
The largest and oldest Patriarchal See was based at the Rabban Hormizd monastery of Alqosh, near Mosul. It spread from Aqrah up to Seert and Nisibis, covering the South rich plain of Mosul (it is known also as Eliya line). Since the 15th century, its Patriarchs belonged to the Bar Mama (or Abuna) family and they were appointed through a strict hereditary system: the old patriarch chose one of his nephews (or sometimes his young brother), and consecrated him as metropolitan bishop with right of succession. The nephew was known as natar kursi (designated successor). In 1760 the patriarch of this See was Eliya XII (or XI) Denkha, the uncle of Yohannan Hormizd. In 1681, the patriarchal See of Amid became independent and made a formal union with Rome (it is also known as the Josephite line). This See included a few towns such as Amid and Mardin in the North-West Mountains, which are now in Turkey. In 1760 the patriarch was Joseph IV Lazar Hindi, a relative of Augustine Hindi. The patriarchate struggled with financial difficulties due to the tax burden imposed by the Turkish authorities. The third patriarchal See was located in Qochanis and extended into the North East Mountains (also known as the Shimun line). This patriarchal line began in 1553 when Mar Yohannan Sulaqa was consecrated bishop by the Pope, but soon became independent of Rome and still survives in the denomination today known as Assyrian Church of the East
In 1808, the Assyrian Gabriel Dambo (1775-1832) revived the abandoned monastery, rebuilt it, collected a number of pupils vowed to poverty and celibacy, and installed there a seminary. At first this initiative was opposed by Yohannan VIII Hormizd, then Archbishop of Mosul, even if it was supported by the patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi. Patriarch Joseph Audo, before he was appointed the bishop of Mosul, was himself a monk of Rabban Hormizd monastery.
By 1760 the Church of the East had become divided into three patriarchates:
"3. In 1681, the Josephite line split from the Eliya line; with residence erected in Amid, in full communion with Rome:"
The Eliya line (1) in Alqosh ended in 1804, and branch of Yohannan VIII Hormizd, that was in communion with Rome, merged with the Catholic Josephite line in Amid (3), with Yohannan VIII Hormizd recognised by the Holy See as Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans in 1830. This merged line, which relocated the see to Mosul, formed the contemporary unbroken patriarchal line of the Chaldean Catholic Church. For subsequent Chaldean Catholic Patriarchs, see List of Chaldean Catholic Patriarchs of Babylon.
Basil Asmar of Telkepe, a monk of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and metropolitan of Amadiya since 1824, fled to Amid in 1827 after being expelled from Telkepe by Yohannan Hormizd, and was consecrated metropolitan of Amid after the death of Augustine Hindi. On his death in 1842 he was succeeded by Giwargis Peter di Natale, the coadjutor of the patriarch Yohannan VIII Hormizd, who died in 1867. 
Before that, all of the inhabitants of Alqosh, like their brothers in other Assyrian towns, followed what is erroneously called the Nestorian faith, but were in actuality a part of the  Church of the East. From 1610 to 1617, the Patriarchate of Alqosh, under Mar Eliyya VIII, entered in Full Communion with Rome. the union was reinstated later in 1771 when the patriarch Eliya Denkha signed a Catholic confession of faith, although no formal union resulted till the reign of patriarch Yohannan VIII (Eliya) Hormizd (1760–1838).
On 13 October 1837, conscious that he had not long to live, Yohannan Hormizd designated as coadjutor and 'guardian of the throne' Gregory Peter di Natale, metropolitan of Gazarta, presumably with the intention of excluding his nephew Eliya from the patriarchal dignity. However, he did not promise the succession to his coadjutor, and in a bull of 25 September 1838 the Vatican appointed Nicholas Zaya Yohannan's coadjutor, with the right of succession. The main reason for the Vatican's intervention was to ensure that the hereditary principle, first introduced into the Church of the East in the fifteenth century, would play no part in the selection of the next patriarch. The bull mentioned Yohannan Hormizd's growing infirmity and the desirability of avoiding inconvenience and harm should the patriarchate suddenly become vacant. As a Persian by birth, Zaya could lay claim to the protection of the foreign consuls in Turkey. He had also been educated at the Propaganda, and it was hoped that after Yohannan's death he would loyally implement Vatican policy. The bull of appointment arrived in Mosul after the death of Yohannan Hormizd, thus Nicholas Zaya became patriarch in 1839 and was confirmed by the pope on April 27, 1840.
Once again, Yohannan refused to accept the validity of the sentence, and for the next few years continued to assert his authority wherever he could, abetted by the civil authorities at ʿ</i>Amadiya. The Rabban Hormizd monks refused to have anything to do with him and accepted the authority of Augustine Hindi (the colophon of manuscripts copied in the monastery at this period dutifully mention the patriarchal administrator Mar Augustine, not Mar Yohannan). Three monks of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd were consecrated metropolitan bishops at Amid by Hindi in March 1825: the future patriarch Joseph Audo for Mosul, Lawrent Sho<i about="#mwt88" data-mw='{"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"transl","href":"./Template:Transl"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"ar"},"2":{"wt":"DIN"},"3":{"wt":"ʿ"}},"i":0}}]}' data-parsoid='{"stx":"html","dsr":[23787,23806,null,null],"pi":[[{"k":"1"},{"k":"2"},{"k":"3"}]]}' lang="ar-Latn" title="DIN 31635 Arabic (Arabic language) transliteration" typeof="mw:Transclusion">ʿ</i>a for Baghdad, and Basil Asmar for ʿ</i>Amadiya. Two other bishops perhaps consecrated on the same occasion, Mikha'il Kattula and Ignatius Dashto, were sent to Seert and Mardin, traditional sees of the Amid patriarchate, but the other three returned to their home villages north of Mosul; Basil Asmar to Telkepe, Lawrent Sho<i about="#mwt90" data-mw='{"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"transl","href":"./Template:Transl"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"ar"},"2":{"wt":"DIN"},"3":{"wt":"ʿ"}},"i":0}}]}' data-parsoid='{"stx":"html","dsr":[24171,24190,null,null],"pi":[[{"k":"1"},{"k":"2"},{"k":"3"}]]}' lang="ar-Latn" title="DIN 31635 Arabic (Arabic language) transliteration" typeof="mw:Transclusion">ʿ</i>a to Tel Isqof and Joseph Audo to Alqosh. There each of the three metropolitans began ordaining priests and deacons, in a direct challenge to Yohannan's authority.[17]
In 1789 Lazar Hindi was imprisoned by the Turkish authorities for his debt of twenty thousand "piastras". He escaped in 1790 and left for Rome.
When he arrived in Rome in March 1791, he found that the Vatican was not so interested in his small patriarchate, but was working on possible unions with both the patriarchate of Qochanis, whose patriarch Mar Shimun XV Maqdassi Mikhail in 1770 wrote to Rome to establish contacts, and mainly with the ancient patriarchate of Alqosh, contended by two cousins, one of which, Yohannan VIII Eliya Hormizd, considered himself a Catholic. In 1791 the Vatican had given the government of Amid, the main town of Lazar Hindi's patriarchate, to Yohannan Hormizd. Lazar Hindi vehemently objected, and in 1793 succeeded to have his nephew Augustine returned to be the episcopal administrator of Amid, besides being patriarchal administrator.
Yohannan Hormizd's suspension lasted for six years. At first he refused to accept the validity of the Vatican's decision, and issued threats against his opponents. Eventually he decided to seek a reconciliation with them, and a meeting was held on 20 February 1818 at Alqosh, attended by a hundred clergymen and notables, in which he agreed to apologise in writing for his misdeeds. In return, the assembly decided to send a letter to the Vatican to ask for his suspension to be lifted. Unfortunately, these good intentions were frustrated, as the letter’s courier was killed en route and the letter never reached its destination. The Vatican, ignorant of the rapprochement between Yohannan Hormizd and his opponents, was briefed on the affairs of the Chaldean Church early in 1818 by Campanile, who is unlikely to have placed a sympathetic construction on Yohannan Hormizd’s previous record. The Sacred Congregation concluded that Yohannan Hormizd had not taken his suspension seriously, and on 24 May 1818 it was renewed. The appointments of Augustine Hindi and Giwargis of Alqosh were renewed by briefs of 26 June 1818, and Yohannan Hormizd was informed of the new sentence in a latter of 11 July 1818.[16]
The foundation of the Chaldean Catholic diocese of Kirkuk has been attributed to Yohannan VIII Hormizd, who was recognised by the Vatican as patriarchal administrator of the patriarch of Babylon in 1780 and, after five decades of disputes and confrontations, as patriarch in 1830. According to the Chaldean Catholic priest Joseph Tfinkdji, Yohannan Hormizd visited the town of Kirkuk in 1789 while travelling from Mosul to Baghdad, and converted its Church of the East community to Catholicism. He is said to have consecrated a Chaldean metropolitan for Kirkuk, Mar Abraham, who resided in Aïnqawa during his reign, and died between 1821 and 1824. The source for this assertion is not clear. Abraham is not mentioned by any other source, and as Yohannan Hormizd himself (then considered by the Vatican to be merely metropolitan of Mosul) is styled 'metropolitan of Kirkuk' in a colophon of 1798, the Kirkuk region would seem to have been part of the diocese of Mosul at this period.
Couperrie died shortly afterwards, and was succeeded as apostolic vicar by his assistant Laurent Trioche, who was consecrated a bishop for the purpose by Yohannan and the metropolitan Lawrent Sho<i about="#mwt105" data-mw='{"parts":[{"template":{"target":{"wt":"transl","href":"./Template:Transl"},"params":{"1":{"wt":"ar"},"2":{"wt":"DIN"},"3":{"wt":"ʿ"}},"i":0}}]}' data-parsoid='{"stx":"html","dsr":[27510,27529,null,null],"pi":[[{"k":"1"},{"k":"2"},{"k":"3"}]]}' lang="ar-Latn" title="DIN 31635 Arabic (Arabic language) transliteration" typeof="mw:Transclusion">ʿ</i>a of Kirkuk on the Vatican's instructions. Like his predecessor, Trioche took Yohannan’s part, and in a consistory held in the Vatican on 5 July 1830 it was agreed that Yohannan should be relieved of the archdiocese of Mosul, confirmed as patriarch of the Chaldeans and awarded the pallium (the traditional symbol of the Vatican's recognition of his succession).[20] The decision was communicated to Yohannan Hormizd, now aged 74, in two papal bulls of the same date.[21]
Whether or not Yohannan Hormizd was able to consecrate a metropolitan for Kirkuk, the sympathies of the town's Assyrian Catholics were clearly of some significance during the power struggle between the patriarchal administrator and his opponents in the Chaldean Church and the Vatican. In 1795 the Vatican's representative Padre Fulgenzio appears to have tried to persuade the Chaldean Catholics of Kirkuk to withdraw their allegiance from Yohannan Hormizd. According to Yohannan Hormizd's own account, quoted by Badger:
Padre Fulgenzio, however, departed and went to Selook, which is Kerkook, and created divisions among the Meshihayé there, and he did the same at Ainkâwa. Moreover he wrote letters to other villages which began in this style: I, Padre Fulgenzio, superior of the Patriarchs of the East, &c.
A stable Chaldean diocese for Kirkuk seems to have been founded by the patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, who consecrated Lawrent Shoa of Tel Isqof metropolitan of Kirkuk in 1826 in opposition to Yohannan Hormizd. Lawrent Shoa, born in Tel Isqof around 1792, was a monk in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and was ordained a priest in 1821 (Tfinkdji). Several manuscripts copied by him have survived, whose colophons mention that his father's name was Nisan. Like most of his fellow monks, he supported Gabriel Dambo in his long struggle with Yohannan Hormizd. After his consecration he initially returned to Tel Isqof, but eventually moved to Kirkuk, where he administered his diocese for 27 years. He died in Mosul on 23 August 1853 and was buried in the cathedral of Mart Meskinta. 
After Yohannan's release the charges made by his opponents were investigated by the Latin apostolic vicar Pierre-Alexander Coupperie, who travelled to Mosul to interview him. Yohannan was absolved of blame and restored to the exercise of his jurisdiction. Gabriel Dambo was then in Rome, to lobby more effectively against his rival, and he and his supporters declared Coupperie's decision invalid and insisted that they would not accept Yohannan’s authority unless he was absolved personally by the pope. Coupperie therefore persuaded a number of influential Chaldeans to join him in a written appeal to the Vatican for Yohannan's reinstatement.[19]
Yohannan Hormizd's career, first as patriarchal administrator and finally as patriarch, was dogged by disputes. Most of the surviving contemporary accounts of his patriarchate are partisan, and must be used with care.
In the early 19th century there was not yet a formal union between the two patriarchal lines that professed to be in communion with the Holy See. The ancient monastery of Rabban Hormizd, that for many centuries was the see of the Mama patriarchal family supported by most of the East Syrian Christians, in 1808 recognized as its own patriarch Mar Augustine Hindi, the leader of a patriarchal line started by Mar Joseph I in 1681 in union with Rome. This was fiercely opposed by the last descendant of the Mama family, Yohannan Hormizd, also in communion with Rome. Joseph Audo was a partisan of Mar Augustine Hindi and thus became an active opponent of Yohannan Hormizd: the strong conflict came to an end only through the direct intervention of two apostolic delegates sent by Rome in 1828-1829.
The partisan spirit of the contemporary accounts was reflected in the texts of several later Chaldean authors, notably Giamil and Tfinkdji. Stephane Bello, writing in 1939 with access to the Vatican archives, was the first scholar to write a dispassionate account of Yohannan Hormizd's career. He has been followed more recently by Habbi. Much of the recent scholarship on Yohannan Hormizd is in French or German, but convenient English summaries of his career were made by David Wilmshurst in 2000 and by Christoph Baumer in 2006.[3] In 2003 Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar Winkler devoted three paragraphs to Yohannan Hormizd.[4]
In doing so he was following in the footsteps of Gabriel Dambo, whose revival of monasticism in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd in 1808 had been partly intended to supply the church with a well-educated and disciplined clergy. To a certain extent it did; monks from the monastery were sent out as priests and deacons to Baghdad, Basra, and a number of Chaldean villages in the Mosul and Amadiya districts in the 1820s, and no doubt served their congregations well. Audo himself and other monks later became bishops. But the first Rabban Hormizd superiors, Gabriel Dambo and Yohannan Gwera, also spent much of their energies quarreling with the patriarchs Yohannan VIII Hormizd and Nicholas I Zaya, with damaging consequences for the morale of the church.
An energetic and charismatic visionary, Gabriel had his own ideas of how things should be done, and had little patience with the leaders of the Chaldean Church. If the new seminary was to succeed it needed its own income, and Gabriel insisted, probably correctly, that a large proportion of the property then in the hands of the patriarchal family was originally owned by the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and should rightly revert to it. Yohannan Hormizd, understandably, did not agree. This single issue would have been sufficient to poison relations between the two men, but there were other causes of friction as well. The new seminary had attracted men who disliked Yohannan Hormizd and wanted more vigorous leadership. The monks rallied around their superior and made no secret of their distaste for the patriarchal administrator. They were joined by the Catholic missionaries, who shared their admiration for Gabriel, and by a number of influential priests, notably Yohannan of Tel Isqof and Yohannan of Alqosh. In 1809 the Vatican seriously considered the possibility of suspending Yohannan Hormizd, and rumours that he had indeed been suspended were circulated by his opponents, eliciting a spirited letter of protest to the Vatican by his supporters on 15 October 1811.
According to his autobiography, Yohannan Hormizd was born in 1760 in Alqosh to an Assyrian family. His father, the deacon Hanna (Yohannan), was the brother of the Mosul patriarch Eliya XII Denha (1722–78).[5]
He was succeeded by the Rabban Hormizd monk Mikha'il Kattula of Telkepe, one of the many opponents of Yohannan VIII Hormizd, who was consecrated in 1826 by Joseph V. He died in 1855 and was buried in the monastery of Mar Yaqob.
Meanwhile, the Vatican reconsidered the condemnation of Yohannan Hormizd in the light of fresh information, and on 25 November 1826 publicly absolved him. At the same time, to restore the peace of the Chaldean Church, it urged the 66-year-old former patriarchal administrator to renounce his claims to the archdiocese of Mosul and to retire quietly. Yohannan, vindicated by the Vatican's absolution and supported by the local civil authorities, stubbornly refused to retire. Instead, he fought back against his opponents. In 1827, during the absence of the superior Gabriel Dambo in Rome, a number of monks in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd rebelled against its administrator Yohannan Gwera, who enjoyed the support of the metropolitan Joseph Audo. Yohannan Hormizd upheld the rebels, and was also able to have Basil Asmar expelled from Telkepe, forcing him to take refuge in Amid.
Hnanisho seems to have become reconciled with Yohannan Hormizd after the death of Eliya XIII Ishoyahb in 1804, as in 1808 he was living in his household in Alqosh. He was 'senior to Yohannan, and governed the diocese of Amadiya, but all the same could do nothing without the approval of the metropolitan Yohannan'. Although he sympathised with Gabriel Dambo's monastic order, his dependence on Yohannan Hormizd occasionally forced him to act against his better judgement. In 1808 he asserted himself by delivering the monastery of Rabban Hormizd to Gabriel Dambo in defiance of Yohannan Hormizd's wishes. In 1811, however, on Yohannan Hormizd's instructions, he 'became a Nestorian at Amadiya' and expelled Dambo and his monks from the monastery with the assistance of the civil authorities. In 1813 he fell mortally ill, and made amends for his harsh treatment of the monks on his deathbed by returning the keys of the monastery to them. He died shortly afterwards and was buried in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd, 'among the tombs of the patriarchs of the Nestorians'.