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Hindi, his vicar-general Joseph Attar and the clergy of Amid, and on 3 February 1793 Yohannan Hormizd's appointment was rescinded.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, the Martyr
Hormizd lived in a time where the Persian kings systematically persecuted Christians . According to Theodoret, it was not easy to express in words how the Christians were put to death. Nevertheless, these cruelties did not discourage the Christians from retaining their faith. Hormizd grew up in such a context in which he inculcated a spirit of martyrdom. According to Christelle Jullien, some martyrdoms during the reign of Bahram V, are known from literary traditions, "like that of Hormozd, Šahin, Persian notables, and Benjamin the deacon, whose story was reported by Theodoret (Eccl. Hist. V.39, 12-24; cf. Michael the Syrian, Chronicle VIII, 4, 15; 17) also preserved in an Armenian document (BHO 7; Peeters, 1909, pp. 399-415."