Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk-Sulaimaniya
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.
Johannes Hymonides
At the instance of Pope John VIII (872-82), John wrote a life of St. Gregory the Great, making use of the works of this pope and above all of extracts made at an earlier date from the pope's letters in the archives of the Roman Church. The work is divided into four books: in the first he gives an account of the life of Gregory up to the time of his pontificate; in the second, of his activities as pope; in the third, of his teachings; and in the fourth, of his progress in perfection. The life was most recently edited by the Maurists. For John VIII, John also composed in 876 an adaptation of the Cena Cypriani.