He was forced to change his name to Mikhael after the 17 July Revolution in 1968 that ushered in Baathist rule because authorities believed his birth name Minashi sounded ‘too Jewish’.
He was son of Khammo Pius and Soriya Kakko of Mavana, Targawer, Persia, children of the tens of thousands of Christian Assyrians who agreed to fight on the side of the Allies.
They had been forced by Ottoman forces to abandon their homelands in modern-day Turkey and Iran and flee to the safety of refugee camps in Mesopotamia during World War I. Pius spent his childhood in Khatun Camp, Baghdad, and in the Maharatha Lines on the RAF Station Hinaidi, where he had his early education at Raabi Spania Shimshon's Elementary School.
Pius had resumed writing in 1984 and experimented with self-publishing, commencing with a newsletter called Bil Khizmaany Wdosty (Between Kith And Kin).
He became a prolific contributor on sports on the RAF base Habbaniya in the early 1950s and from Baghdad from 1954 to 1958, writing for English language newspaper The Iraq Times.