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.
Yohannan VIII Hormizd
On the following day his nephews Ishoyahb and Yohannan both made Catholic professions of faith and were reconciled. Despite the late patriarch's preference the Latin missionaries supported Ishoyahb, who shortly afterwards succeeded his uncle as patriarch, taking the name Eliya XIII Ishoyahb, without open opposition from the young Yohannan. In May 1779, as soon as he had obtained his "firman" of office from the Ottoman civil authorities, Ishoyahb abandoned his Catholic profession of faith. The notables of Mosul, with the support of the Latin missionaries, deposed him and unanimously chose Shemon of Amid, the Chaldean metropolitan of Mardin (1758–88), as patriarch in his place. Shemon however declined to accept the honour, and Ishoyahb’s opponents were obliged to turn instead to the young Yohannan Hormizd, who had demonstrated his zeal for the Catholic cause since Ishoyahb's "volte face" by converting the Nestorians of the large Erbil villages of Aïnqawa, Armuta and Shaqlawa to Catholicism and encouraging them to withdraw their loyalty from his cousin. Yohannan was elected patriarch in 1780, and his supporters bribed the governor of Mosul to use his influence to obtain a firman from Constantinople, granting him authority over both the Chaldean Christians and the Nestorians. Yohannan then sent a profession of faith and a letter of submission to the Vatican.