Joseph IV

Not to be confused with Youssef IV, a Maronite Patriarch of Antioch 1644–1648.

Mar Joseph IV Timotheus Lazar Hindi was the fourth incumbent of the Josephite line of Church of the East, a patriarchate in full communion with the pope mainly active in the areas of Amid and Mardin. He was considered the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church from 1757 to 1796.

Mar Joseph IV Lazar Hindi
Patriarch of the Chaldeans
Church	Chaldean Catholic Church
See	Amid of the Chaldeans
Installed	25 March 1759
Term ended	1796
Predecessor	Joseph III Timothy Maroge
Successor	Joseph V Augustine Hindi
Personal details
Born	Lazar Hindi 14 September 1726
Died	1796 (aged 69–70)
Residence	Amid, Turkey

Life

Lazar Hindi, born on 14 September 1726,^[1] educated at the Urban college in Rome, was elected patriarch after the death on 23 January 1757 of his predecessor Joseph III Timothy Maroge. He was consecrated bishop on 8 February 1757 by Yohannan Basil, bishop of Mardin (died 1758), who in turn had been consecrated bishop in 1741 by Joseph III.^[2]: 54 Lazar Hindi was confirmed patriarch by the Clement XIII on 25 March 1759 and received the pallium on 9 April 1759. He took the name of Joseph (Youssef) IV.

From 1765 to 1768 he went to Rome for printing Chaldean liturgical books and Gospels.

Lazar Hindi coped with the main problem of his predecessors: the tax burdens imposed by the Ottoman authorities on his churches with any kind of pretexts.^[2]: 27 As his predecessor, in the 1770s he visited the European courts to raise funds but without results.

Back in Amid, dispirited, he resigned in August 1780, appointing as successor his nephew Augustine Hindi. The Holy See accepted the resignation in 1781 but objected to the succession of his nephew. Informed of this, Lazar Hindi withdrew his resignation and remained in Amid.^[3]: 212

In 1789 Lazar Hindi was imprisoned by the Turkish authorities for his debt of twenty thousand piastras.^[3]: 211 He escaped in 1790 and left for Rome. When he arrived in Rome in March 1791, he found that the Vatican was not so interested in his small patriarchate, but was working on possible unions with both the patriarchate of Qochanis, whose patriarch Mar Shimun XV Maqdassi Mikhail in 1770^[4] wrote to Rome to establish contacts, and mainly with the ancient patriarchate of Alqosh, contended by two cousins, one of which, Yohannan VIII Eliya Hormizd, considered himself a Catholic. In 1791 the Vatican had given the government of Amid, the main town of Lazar Hindi's patriarchate, to Yohannan Hormizd. Lazar Hindi vehemently objected, and in 1793 succeeded to have his nephew Augustine returned to be the episcopal administrator of Amid, besides being patriarchal administrator.^[3]: 211

Lazar Hindi died in Italy in 1796.^[2]: 27

Notes

1. Curia Romana, Catholic Church (1773). Annuario pontificio 1773. Rome. p. 254. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
2. David, Wilmshurst (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organization of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-0876-5.
3. Frazee, Charles A. (2006). Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02700-7.
4. Heleen H.L. Murre. "The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. Archived from the original on 2008-12-22. Retrieved 2009-01-24.

Sources

• Frazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.

Preceded by Joseph III Timothy Maroge

Patriarch of Babylon 1757–1780

Succeeded by Joseph V Augustine Hindi