Yohannan Hormizd
| Yohannan VIII Hormizd | |
|---|---|
| Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans | |
 |
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| Church | Chaldean Catholic Church |
| See | Babylon of the Chaldeans |
| Installed | 5 July 1830 |
| Term ended | 1838 |
| Predecessor | Augustine (Yousef V) Hindi |
| Successor | Nicholas I Zayʿa |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | 22 May 1776 (Bishop) by Patriarch Eliya XII Denha |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Yohannan Hormizd |
| Born | 1760 Alqosh |
| Died | 16 August 1838 (aged 77–78) Mosul |
| Residence | Iraq, Ottoman Empire |
Mar Yohannan VIII Hormizd (often referred to by European missionaries as John Hormez or Hanna Hormizd) was the last hereditary patriarch of the Eliya line of the Church of the East and the first patriarch of a united Chaldean Church. After succeeding his uncle Eliya XII Denha in 1780 as patriarch of Mosul, he made a Catholic profession of faith and was recognised in 1783 by the Vatican as patriarchal administrator and archbishop of Mosul. His career as patriarchal administrator was controversial, and was marked by a series of conflicts with his own bishops and also with the Vatican. Suspended from his functions in 1812 and again in 1818, he was reinstated by the Vatican in 1828. In 1830, following the death of the Amid patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, he was recognised by the Vatican as patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans and the Mosul and Amid patriarchates were united under his leadership. This event marked the birth of the modern Chaldean Catholic Church. Yohannan Hormizd died in 1838 and his successor Nicholas I Zayʿa was chosen by the Vatican, ending the centuries-old practice of hereditary succession in the Eliya line of the Church of the East.
Yohannan Hormizd's career, first as patriarchal administrator and finally as patriarch, was dogged by disputes. Most of the surviving contemporary accounts of his patriarchate are partisan, and must be used with care.
Yohannan Hormizd himself wrote a polemical autobiography in Syriac, a fragment of which (breaking off in 1795) was translated into English by the Anglican missionary George Percy Badger and reproduced in his classic 1852 study of the Church of the East, The Nestorians and Their Rituals. His opponents responded with an equally intemperate history of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd under the headship of Gabriel Dambo of Mardin (1775–1832), which was published in a French translation by M. Brière in 1910 and 1911. Both texts provide spirited accounts of the intrigues that followed Yohannan's election as patriarch in 1780. Neither can be trusted on matters of interpretation, but if read judiciously they shed valuable light on the politics of the Chaldean Church in the late eighteenth- and early-nineteenth centuries and provide a wealth of factual detail omitted in many accounts of this period.
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