Yohannan VIII Hormizd

By 1760 the Church of the East had become divided into three patriarchates: • The largest and oldest Patriarchal See was based at the Rabban Hormizd monastery of Alqosh, near Mosul. It spread from Aqrah up to Seert and Nisibis, covering the South rich plain of Mosul (it is known also as Eliya line). Since the 15th century, its Patriarchs belonged to the Bar Mama (or Abuna) family and they were appointed through a strict hereditary system: the old patriarch chose one of his nephews (or sometimes his young brother), and consecrated him as metropolitan bishop with right of succession. The nephew was known as natar kursi (designated successor). In 1760 the patriarch of this See was Eliya XI (1722-1778), the uncle of Yohannan Hormizd. • In 1681, the patriarchal See of Amid became independent and made a formal union with Rome (it is also known as the Josephite line). This See included a few towns such as Amid and Mardin in the North-West Mountains, which are now in Turkey. In 1760 the patriarch was Joseph IV Lazar Hindi, a relative of Augustine Hindi. The patriarchate struggled with financial difficulties due to the tax burden imposed by the Turkish authorities. • The third patriarchal See was located in Qochanis and extended into the North East Mountains (also known as the Shimun line). This patriarchal line began in 1553 when Yohannan Sulaqa was consecrated bishop by the Pope, but soon became independent of Rome and still survives in the denomination today known as Assyrian Church of the East ==Early life==

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 XI Denha (1722–1778). The Vatican opened a correspondence with both the Mosul and Qochanis patriarchs in 1770. At this period hereditary succession (normally from uncle to nephew as the patriarchs themselves remained celibate) was in force in both patriarchates. Eliya XI had consecrated his nephew a metropolitan in 1745 and had also bestowed upon him the traditional title natar kursya ('guardian of the throne'), thereby designating him his presumptive successor. Eliya XI and his nephew both made Catholic professions of faith in 1771 in response to this overture from the Vatican, and Pope Clement XIV wrote to Eliya on 12 December 1772 to commend his zeal and to urge him to bring over his people to Catholicism. Earlier in the same year, however, Eliya had deposed from his metropolitan rank, apparently alarmed by his ambition, and ordained the twelve-year-old Yohannan Hormizd, another nephew, as a deacon. Four years later, on 22 May 1776, Yohannan was consecrated a metropolitan by Eliya XI and named natar kursya in his turn. If his uncle had lived a few years longer, Yohannan's succession would probably have been assured, but the patriarch was among the victims of a plague which swept through the Mosul district in 1778, and died in the village of Alqosh on 29 April 1778. == Irregular patriarchal succession, 1780–83 ==

On the following day his nephews and Yohannan both made Catholic professions of faith and were reconciled. Despite the late patriarch's preference the Latin missionaries supported , who shortly afterwards succeeded his uncle as patriarch, taking the name Eliya XII (1778-1804), 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, abandoned his Catholic profession of faith. The notables of Mosul, with the support of the Latin missionaries, deposed him and unanimously chose of Amid, the Chaldean metropolitan of Mardin (1758–88), as patriarch in his place. however declined to accept the honour, and 's opponents were obliged to turn instead to the young Yohannan Hormizd, who had demonstrated his zeal for the Catholic cause since 's volte face by converting the Nestorians of the large Erbil villages of , 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. The Vatican was placed in a dilemma by this turn of events. If Yohannan's profession of faith was genuine, he might be the Catholic patriarch of Babylon the Vatican had long been hoping for, and his confirmation would be rapidly followed by the adoption of Catholicism by all the villages of the Mosul patriarchate. On the other hand, to confirm Yohannan's election would be to condone the distasteful practice of hereditary succession. There was also the possibility that Yohannan's submission was no more sincere than 's had been two years earlier. The Vatican's initial response was therefore to inform Raphael Terconuski, the superior of the Catholic mission at Mosul, that Yohannan Hormizd's profession of faith appeared to be satisfactory, but that his election was to be considered null. On 18 February 1783, having considered further, the Sacred Congregation decided to appoint Yohannan archbishop of Mosul and administrator of the patriarchate of Babylon, granting him all the necessary powers to that end except the title and the insignia of the patriarch. == Patriarchal administrator and archbishop of Mosul, 1783–1830 ==

Honeymoon period, 1783–1801 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 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 to Mengesh in the Sapna district, where he was equally successful. While his relations with the Vatican were cooling, Yohannan Hormizd also had to deal with the opposition of his cousin , who continued to assert that he was the rightful patriarch. After Yohannan's irregular election in 1780 withdrew to Amadiya|, whose governor Isma'il gave him 'the Nestorian dioceses of the mountain' to govern. He made another Catholic profession of faith on 7 April 1783 in an attempt to regain the sympathies of the missionaries, and to preserve the patriarchate within his family consecrated his nephew metropolitan in 1784. Several years of bitter faction-fighting followed, in which the civil authorities in Baghdad held the balance between Muhammad, governor of Mosul, who supported Yohannan Hormizd, and Isma'il, governor of , who sheltered and his followers. In 1788 Yohannan's nephew was arrested on a visit to the village of Bir Sivi in the Zakho district on Isma'il's orders, and was only released by the joint efforts of the governor of Mosul and Sulaiman, governor of Baghdad. In 1792 Yohannan and his two brothers went to on business, and were arrested, beaten and imprisoned for three and a half months by the Turkish authorities. Again, the governor of Baghdad intervened to secure their release. First clash with the Vatican, 1802 Yohannan's precarious relations with the Vatican survived a further test in 1801, only to sink further in 1802. In 1796 a delegation from the Malabar Christians arrived in Mosul and begged him to consecrate a bishop for them. Yohannan punctiliously wrote to the Vatican for guidance, but as Rome was then under French occupation he did not receive a reply, and in 1798 consecrated the Indian priest Paul Pandari as a bishop for the Malabar Christians. As many of the Malabar Christians were now in communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church, which had replaced the Church of the East as the main focus of loyalty among the Syrian Christians of India three centuries earlier, Yohannan tactfully appointed Pandari bishop 'of Mar Behnam', a celebrated West Syrian monastery near Mosul. The Malabar Christians informed the Vatican of Pandari's arrival in India in a letter of 17 January 1800, and Yohannan was asked to account for his actions. His explanation was accepted, and in a general consistory of 23 September 1801 the possibility of appointing him patriarch of Babylon was considered. Unfortunately for Yohannan, his position was immediately undermined by renewed complaints from a section of the Chaldean church. On this occasion his opponents, supported by the Latin missionaries, impugned his orthodoxy and accused him of embezzling monastic property. In 1802 the priest Yohannan Mushe of Tel Isqof was despatched to Rome with letters demanding the dismissal of both Yohannan and his nephew , metropolitan of . He had only sufficient funds to reach Saida in Syria, where he entrusted the letter to the missionary Leopold Sebastien, who was leaving for Rome. The letters do not seem to have produced any immediate effect, but doubtless added to the concern in the Vatican about Yohannan Hormizd's reliability. Yohannan Hormizd's suspension lasted for six years. At first he refused to accept the validity of the Vatican's decision, and issued threats against his opponents. Eventually he decided to seek a reconciliation with them, and a meeting was held on 20 February 1818 at Alqosh, attended by a hundred clergymen and notables, in which he agreed to apologise in writing for his misdeeds. In return, the assembly decided to send a letter to the Vatican to ask for his suspension to be lifted. Unfortunately, these good intentions were frustrated, as the letter's courier was killed en route and the letter never reached its destination. The Vatican, ignorant of the rapprochement between Yohannan Hormizd and his opponents, was briefed on the affairs of the Chaldean Church early in 1818 by Campanile, who is unlikely to have placed a sympathetic construction on Yohannan Hormizd's previous record. The Sacred Congregation concluded that Yohannan Hormizd had not taken his suspension seriously, and on 24 May 1818 it was renewed. The appointments of Augustine Hindi and Giwargis of Alqosh were renewed by briefs of 26 June 1818, and Yohannan Hormizd was informed of the new sentence in a latter of 11 July 1818. Once again, Yohannan refused to accept the validity of the sentence, and for the next few years continued to assert his authority wherever he could, abetted by the civil authorities at . The Rabban Hormizd monks refused to have anything to do with him and accepted the authority of Augustine Hindi (the colophon of manuscripts copied in the monastery at this period dutifully mention the patriarchal administrator Mar Augustine, not Mar Yohannan). Three monks of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd were consecrated metropolitan bishops at Amid by Hindi in March 1825: the future patriarch Joseph Audo for Mosul, for Baghdad, and Basil Asmar for . Two other bishops perhaps consecrated on the same occasion, Mikha'il Kattula and Ignatius Dashto, were sent to Seert and Mardin, traditional sees of the Amid patriarchate, but the other three returned to their home villages north of Mosul; Basil Asmar to Telkepe, to Tel Isqof and Joseph Audo to Alqosh. There each of the three metropolitans began ordaining priests and deacons, in a direct challenge to Yohannan's authority. Meanwhile, the Vatican reconsidered the condemnation of Yohannan Hormizd in the light of fresh information, and on 25 November 1826 publicly absolved him. At the same time, to restore the peace of the Chaldean Church, it urged the 66-year-old former patriarchal administrator to renounce his claims to the archdiocese of Mosul and to retire quietly. Yohannan, vindicated by the Vatican's absolution and supported by the local civil authorities, stubbornly refused to retire. Instead, he fought back against his opponents. In 1827, during the absence of the superior Gabriel Dambo in Rome, a number of monks in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd rebelled against its administrator Yohannan Gwera, who enjoyed the support of the metropolitan Joseph Audo. Yohannan Hormizd upheld the rebels, and was also able to have Basil Asmar expelled from Telkepe, forcing him to take refuge in Amid. On 3 April 1827, shortly after Basil's arrival, Augustine Hindi died at Amid and was buried in a cemetery outside the city's walls. His death ended the 146-year independent existence of the Amid patriarchate. Basil Asmar, who had endeared himself to the clergy and people of Amid, was appointed Hindi's successor as metropolitan of Amid in 1828, and the Vatican confirmed the appointment. Amid reverted to a metropolitan diocese of the Chaldean Church, and the Amid patriarchate came to an end. Basil's appointment required a bishop to be found for the see of , and as Joseph Audo had failed to overcome the opposition of Yohannan's supporters to his appointment of metropolitan of Mosul, Gabriel Dambo and the Catholic missionaries agreed that he should be reassigned to . Like Basil before him, however, he declined to trust his life to the good faith of Isma'il Pasha, and withdrew to Alqosh, where he continued to intrigue among the Chaldeans and with the local authorities of Mosul against Yohannan. As a result of these intrigues Yohannan was imprisoned for a third time by the Ottoman authorities, for four months. After Yohannan's release the charges made by his opponents were investigated by the Latin apostolic vicar Pierre-Alexander Coupperie, who travelled to Mosul to interview him. Yohannan was absolved of blame and restored to the exercise of his jurisdiction. Gabriel Dambo was then in Rome, to lobby more effectively against his rival, and he and his supporters declared Coupperie's decision invalid and insisted that they would not accept Yohannan's authority unless he was absolved personally by the pope. Coupperie therefore persuaded a number of influential Chaldeans to join him in a written appeal to the Vatican for Yohannan's reinstatement. == Patriarch of Babylon, 1830–8 ==

Couperrie died shortly afterwards, and was succeeded as apostolic vicar by his assistant Laurent Trioche, who was consecrated a bishop for the purpose by Yohannan and the metropolitan of Kirkuk on the Vatican's instructions. Like his predecessor, Trioche took Yohannan's part, and in a consistory held in the Vatican on 5 July 1830 it was agreed that Yohannan should be relieved of the archdiocese of Mosul, confirmed as patriarch of the Chaldeans and awarded the pallium (the traditional symbol of the Vatican's recognition of his succession). The decision was communicated to Yohannan Hormizd, now aged 74, in two papal bulls of the same date. Fifty years after his irregular succession to Eliya XI (d. 1778), Yohannan Hormizd was finally recognised as patriarch of the Chaldean Church and awarded the title patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans. The suppression of the Amid patriarchate and the union of the Chaldean dioceses under the patriarch of Babylon in 1830 marked the birth of the modern Chaldean Catholic Church. The new patriarch was awarded the pallium in a ceremony held in Baghdad on 6 April 1834. Further troubles According to Badger, Yohannan Hormizd was unhappy with the thought of the unbroken succession of the Eliya line ending with his death, and made a curious bargain with the Nestorian church in an attempt to continue the succession. He ordained his nephew Mansur Sefaro a priest, and in 1831 sent him to the Nestorian patriarch (1820–61), who consecrated him at Urmi and appointed him metropolitan over the Nestorians of . The new metropolitan took the name Eliya, the traditional name of the Chaldean patriarchs before the schism of 1552 (Yohannan's own family), and shortly afterwards abandoned the pretence of being a Nestorian and was readmitted into the Chaldean church, ultimately becoming the first Chaldean bishop of in 1852. In spite of this account, it was presumably with the intention of excluding this nephew from being his successor that in 1837 Yohannan, aware that he had not long to live, designated Gregory Peter di Natale, metropolitan of Gazarta, as coadjutor and "guardian of the throne". The feud between Gabriel Dambo and Yohannan Hormizd ended in 1832, when Alqosh was pillaged by Kör Muhammad, chief of the Soran Kurds of Rawanduz. Gabriel Dambo was among the hundreds of East Syrians killed by the Kurds, and was succeeded as superior of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd by Yohannan Gwera. Despite the death of his chief rival, the patriarch's troubles continued throughout the 1830s. The monks of the monastery of Rabban Hormizd still refused to acknowledge his authority, and were supported by the metropolitan Joseph Audo, who now claimed jurisdiction over the monastery on the grounds that it lay within his diocese of . Yohannan Hormizd retaliated by suspending Audo and a number of Rabban Hormizd monks, but this action had little effect. A rumour spread that a new Latin apostolic vicar had been appointed in Rome and was now on his way to Mosul, and the patriarch's enemies temporarily came into line to make a good first impression on this important official. But when after two months he had still not arrived, they resumed their duties in flat defiance of Yohannan's orders. One man only, a priest named Stephen, sent in his submission to the patriarch, and was appointed priest of Telkepe. The patriarch now sent the metropolitan Gregory Peter di Natale to Mosul, accompanied by a priest named Andrew to represent the apostolic vicar Laurent Trioche, to inquire into the conduct of the Rabban Hormizd monks. Joseph Audo thereupon retired to Amid, where he was welcomed by its metropolitan Basil, and the delegates condemned the obstinacy of the monks and returned to Baghdad. On 13 October 1837, conscious that he had not long to live, Yohannan designated as coadjutor and 'guardian of the throne' Gregory Peter di Natale, metropolitan of Gazarta, presumably with the intention of excluding his nephew Eliya from the patriarchal dignity. However, he did not promise the succession to his coadjutor, and in order to ensure that the hereditary principle would play no part in the selection of the next patriarch the Vatican appointed by a bull of 25 September 1838 Nicholas I Zaya|, metropolitan of Salmas, Yohannan's coadjutor with the right of succession. The reason given in the bull for this decision was the growing infirmity of the patriarch and the desirability of avoiding inconvenience and harm should the patriarchate suddenly become vacant. was Persian by birth, from Khosrowa, and as such could lay claim to the protection of the foreign consuls in Turkey. He had also been educated at the Propaganda, and it was hoped that after Yohannan's death he would loyally implement Vatican policy. Yohannan, meanwhile, had died a few weeks earlier, on 16 August 1838. His family, which had provided successive patriarchs since the middle of the fifteenth century, now renounced its hereditary right of succession but insisted on keeping the title Abuna as the family name henceforward. Nicholas I Zaya| duly succeeded Yohannan Hormizd as patriarch, but the manner in which his succession had been arranged by the Vatican offended most of the Chaldean bishops, and 's brief reign (1839–46) would prove to be as stormy as that of his predecessor. == See also ==