Yohannan VIII Hormizd
For the next eight years Yohannan Hormizd seemed to justify the hopes placed in him. He lived on amicable terms with the Catholic missionaries and devoted his energies to the conversion to Catholicism of the villages under his authority. In May 1790, on the advice of the missionaries, he consecrated his nephew Shemon metropolitan, and in August of the same year sent him to the Zibar district, where he converted the Nestorian villages of Arena and Barzane. The following year he sent Shemon to Mengesh in the Sapna district, where he was equally successful. The high point of this honeymoon period came in February 1791, when the Vatican appointed him patriarchal administrator of the Amid patriarchate, recalling Lazar Hindi to Rome to leave him a free hand. This appointment led to strenuous protests from Lazar Hindi, his vicar-general Joseph Attar and the clergy of Amid, and on 3 February 1793 Yohannan Hormizd's appointment was rescinded.
Hormizd II
When Hormizd's father Narseh ascended the throne in 293, he had an investiture relief made in Naqsh-e Rustam, where he is depicted as receiving the ring of kingship from a female figure that is frequently assumed to be the goddess Anahita. However, some scholars have suggested that this may be his queen and Hormizd's mother, Shapurdukhtak. The figure standing behind Narseh is most likely Hormizd, due to his cap being the form of that of an animal protome, which was typically worn by Sasanian heirs. Hormizd most likely did not take part in his father's war against the Roman Empire, which ended diastrously for the Sasanians, with Narseh's wife and some of his offsprings being captured, which forced him to surrender a handful provinces in Armenia and Mesopotamia in order to have his family members handed back to him.