We give sharp point-wise bounds in the weight-aspect on fourth moments of modular forms on arithmetic hyperbolic surfaces associated to Eichler orders. Thereby, we strengthen a result of Xia and extend it to co-compact lattices. We realize this fourth moment by constructing a holomorphic theta kernel on $\mathbf {G} \times \mathbf {G} \times \mathbf {SL}_{2}$, for $\mathbf {G}$ an indefinite inner form of $\mathbf {SL}_2$ over $\mathbb {Q}$, based on the Bergman kernel, and considering its $L^2$-norm in the Weil variable. The constructed theta kernel further gives rise to new elementary theta series for integral quadratic forms of signature $(2,2)$.

Let f be an $L^2$-normalized holomorphic newform of weight k on $\Gamma _0(N) \backslash \mathbb {H}$ with N squarefree or, more generally, on any hyperbolic surface $\Gamma \backslash \mathbb {H}$ attached to an Eichler order of squarefree level in an indefinite quaternion algebra over $\mathbb {Q}$. Denote by V the hyperbolic volume of said surface. We prove the sup-norm estimate

$$\begin{align*}\| \Im(\cdot)^{\frac{k}{2}} f \|_{\infty} \ll_{\varepsilon} (k V)^{\frac{1}{4}+\varepsilon} \end{align*}$$

with absolute implied constant. For a cuspidal Maaß newform $\varphi $ of eigenvalue $\lambda $ on such a surface, we prove that

$$\begin{align*}\|\varphi \|_{\infty} \ll_{\lambda,\varepsilon} V^{\frac{1}{4}+\varepsilon}. \end{align*}$$

We establish analogous estimates in the setting of definite quaternion algebras.

Let $E/\mathbb {Q}$ be a number field of degree $n$. We show that if $\operatorname {Reg}(E)\ll _n |\!\operatorname{Disc}(E)|^{1/4}$ then the fraction of class group characters for which the Hecke $L$-function does not vanish at the central point is $\gg _{n,\varepsilon } |\!\operatorname{Disc}(E)|^{-1/4-\varepsilon }$. The proof is an interplay between almost equidistribution of Eisenstein periods over the toral packet in $\mathbf {PGL}_n(\mathbb {Z})\backslash \mathbf {PGL}_n(\mathbb {R})$ associated to the maximal order of $E$, and the escape of mass of the torus orbit associated to the trivial ideal class.