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.
Mar Ukba
Mar Ukba, an exilarch at Baghdad in the first half of the tenth century; the second exilarch to die in banishment. When Kohen Ẓedeḳ II was appointed "gaon" of Pumbedita he became involved in a controversy with Mar 'Uḳba over the revenues from Khorasan; and the "calif" Al-Muḳtadir (908-932) was induced by Ẓedeḳ's friends to depose Mar 'Uḳba. Soon afterward (917) the latter left Baghdad for Karmisin (Kermanshah), but when the young "calif" went for the summer to his palace at Safran, Mar 'Uḳba devised a scheme to win the royal favor by meeting Al-Muḳtadir's secretary daily in his gardens and greeting him with the recitation of beautiful verses. These pleased the calif's secretary so much that he wrote them down and showed them to his master, who in his turn was so delighted that he sent for Mar 'Uḳba, entered into conversation with him, and asked him to express a wish, whereupon the "gaon" requested that he might be reinstated. The "calif" granted this wish, and Mar 'Uḳba soon returned to Baghdad as exilarch. Kohen Ẓedeḳ and his friends, however, again succeeded in securing his deposition and banishment from the country, whereupon he went to Africa, and was received with high honors at Kairwan as a descendant of the royal house. A sort of throne ("bimah") was built for him in the synagogue, near the Ark of the Law, and he was always the third to read the "parashah," the scroll of the Law being brought to him in his seat.