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).
Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk-Sulaimaniya
Whether or not Yohannan Hormizd was able to consecrate a metropolitan for Kirkuk, the sympathies of the town's Assyrian Catholics were clearly of some significance during the power struggle between the patriarchal administrator and his opponents in the Chaldean Church and the Vatican. In 1795 the Vatican's representative Padre Fulgenzio appears to have tried to persuade the Chaldean Catholics of Kirkuk to withdraw their allegiance from Yohannan Hormizd. According to Yohannan Hormizd's own account, quoted by Badger:
Padre Fulgenzio, however, departed and went to Selook, which is Kerkook, and created divisions among the Meshihayé there, and he did the same at Ainkâwa. Moreover he wrote letters to other villages which began in this style: I, Padre Fulgenzio, superior of the Patriarchs of the East, &c.
A stable Chaldean diocese for Kirkuk seems to have been founded by the patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, who consecrated Lawrent Shoa of Tel Isqof metropolitan of Kirkuk in 1826 in opposition to Yohannan Hormizd. Lawrent Shoa, born in Tel Isqof around 1792, was a monk in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and was ordained a priest in 1821 (Tfinkdji). Several manuscripts copied by him have survived, whose colophons mention that his father's name was Nisan. Like most of his fellow monks, he supported Gabriel Dambo in his long struggle with Yohannan Hormizd. After his consecration he initially returned to Tel Isqof, but eventually moved to Kirkuk, where he administered his diocese for 27 years. He died in Mosul on 23 August 1853 and was buried in the cathedral of Mart Meskinta.