Yohannan VIII Hormizd
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).
Hormizd, the Martyr
Hormizd became the patron of one of the Oriental churches in India, namely St. Hormiz which belonged to the Syro-Malabar Church at Angamaly in Kerala. The relationship could easily be understood in connection with the 16th century Padroado mission in Malabar, where the missionaries tried to conform the rites and liturgy of the ancient Christians of St. Thomas with the Latin rite. After the promulgation of the canons of the Synod of Diamper, Rabban Hormizd, a seventh century saint of the Church of East Syria, was no more the patron of the St. Hormizd Church, the once Cathedral of the late Archbishop Abraham of Angamaly. The Synod of Diamper prohibited the Christians from commemorating the feast of Rabban Hormizd, since Hormizd was considered a Nestorian heretic by Latin missionaries. According to the new regulations, the Synod commanded as planned by Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes that the Christians celebrate the feast of St. Hormizd, the Martyr (according to the Roman Martyrology published from Rome in 1583), a Persian Catholic saint who lived in the fifth century, suppressing the memory of Rabban Hormizd. The Feast was fixed on the 8th of August according to the Canon 10 of the Session 2 of the Synod of Diamper.