Yohannan VIII Hormizd
The feud between Gabriel Dambo and Yohannan Hormizd ended in 1832, when Alqosh was pillaged by Kör Muhammad, chief of the Soran Kurds of Rawanduz. Gabriel Dambo was among the hundreds of East Syrians killed by the Kurds, and was succeeded as superior of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd by Yohannan Gwera. Despite the death of his chief rival, the patriarch's troubles continued throughout the 1830s. The monks of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd still refused to acknowledge his authority, and were supported by the metropolitan Joseph Audo, who now claimed jurisdiction over the monastery on the grounds that it lay within his diocese of Amadiya. Yohannan Hormizd retaliated by suspending Audo and a number of Rabban Hormizd monks, but this action had little effect. A rumour spread that a new Latin apostolic vicar had been appointed in Rome and was now on his way to Mosul, and the patriarch's enemies temporarily came into line to make a good first impression on this important official. But when after two months he had still not arrived, they resumed their duties in flat defiance of Yohannan's orders. One man only, a priest named Stephen, sent in his submission to the patriarch, and was appointed priest of Telkepe.
Yohannan VIII Hormizd
While his relations with the Vatican were cooling, Yohannan Hormizd also had to deal with the opposition of his cousin Ishoyahb, who continued to assert that he was the rightful patriarch. After Yohannan's irregular election in 1780 Ishoyahb withdrew to Amadiya, whose governor Isma'il gave him 'the Nestorian dioceses of the mountain' to govern. He made another Catholic profession of faith on 7 April 1783 in an attempt to regain the sympathies of the missionaries, and to preserve the patriarchate within his family consecrated his nephew Hnanisho metropolitan in 1784. Several years of bitter faction-fighting followed, in which the civil authorities in Baghdad held the balance between Muhammad, governor of Mosul, who supported Yohannan Hormizd, and Isma'il, governor of Amadiya, who sheltered Ishoyahb and his followers. In 1788 Yohannan's nephew Shemon was arrested on a visit to the village of Bir Sivi in the Zakho district on Isma'il's orders, and was only released by the joint efforts of the governor of Mosul and Sulaiman, governor of Baghdad. In 1792 Yohannan and his two brothers went to Amadiya on business, and were arrested, beaten and imprisoned for three and a half months by the Turkish authorities. Again, the governor of Baghdad intervened to secure their release.