Jacob was born at the village of Qal'at Mara east of
Mor Hananyo in 1800. He was the son of Yousif Kapso and when he reached adulthood, he left his village to
Tur Abdin and started to study under
Ignatius Yunan at the Monastery of MOR Elias near a village called Hbob. He became a monk in 1818 and in 1819 he was elevated to the rank of Monk-Priest. In 1831, Patriarch
Ignatius George V ordained him as ecumenical metropolitan as Cyril and appointed him as metropolitan of Mor Hananyo and
Mardin. After his ordination, he traveled to
Tbilisi that was part of
Russian Empire at that time and contacted the
Nicholas I of Russia looking for help in taking back the churches and monasteries that were takien over by the schismic part of the church. In 1844, he was appointed Patriarchal Vicar in the city of
Istanbul where he bought a house and converted it to a church after obtaining the necessary permits and called this church St. Mary. While he was in Istanbul, he bought a small printing press with Syriac fonts and published two books. The first was a prayer book in
Garshuni and the second was the book of
Psalms in Syriac. After he finished printing the two books, he headed back to Mardin and
Mor Hananyo to distribute these two books and visit his family and to collect funds to pay the debts that Patriarch
Ignatius Elias II incurred during his legal pursues to claim back the Syriac Orthodox churches in
Mosul. ==Patriarchal consecration==