Mrs Milingo arrives for her daily prayers

Under threat of excommunication by the Pope,� Mr Milingo - the former head of the Roman Catholic Church in Zambia - has agreed to abandon his three-month-old marriage and return to the embrace of his Church.

But Mrs Milingo - advised by members of the South Korean Unification Church, an American sect led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon - refuses to listen to the official voice of the Vatican.��

She insists that she must see her husband to resolve the crisis caused by his sudden decision to go back on the marriage that he contracted in New York last May and which he has up till now vigorously defended on the grounds that he is supporting "family values".

At the weekend she announced she was going on a hunger strike.

Secret location

Mrs Milingo brushed aside a four-person Vatican delegation - a Korean-speaking priest, a nun, and two Vatican security guards - that arrived at her hotel earlier this week to deliver a manuscript letter from her husband announcing his decision.

She has been telling Italian newspapers how she gave the archbishop her first kiss.�

Mrs Milingo brushed aside a Vatican delegation

The Vatican is keeping secret the whereabouts of the 71-year-old archbishop until he has completed his spiritual preparation for returning to the Church.

But one Vatican source said the Pope will exact some strict form of penance for the archbishop's marital escapade.

A senior Vatican Monsignore interviewed by Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera refused to speculate on what will happen if Mrs Milingo does turn out to be pregnant, using metaphors about not crossing bridges until you actually come to them.

Long scandal

Some Vatican officials plainly believe that the archbishop may have been brainwashed by the Moonies, just as the American sect is now claiming that the Vatican is doing in order to get him back inside the Church.

The Vatican claims the archbishop had been brainwashed

Church officials have excluded any form of psychiatric help for the controversial Archbishop who has for long been a cause for scandal in Rome.

Seventeen years ago Mr Milingo was called to Rome from Lusaka, his African Diocese, where he had been accused of practising witchcraft by some European priests.

Not so claimed Mr Milingo, he was simply using the church ritual used by Jesus Christ himself to exorcise evil spirits.

The archbishop was on that occasion held virtually incommunicado in Rome, exactly like today, while they decided how to deal with his case.�

He was eventually given a minor job in the Vatican administration and an apartment situated very conveniently just opposite the main service entrance to Vatican City, the gate of Saint Anne.

Here the ecclesiastical authorities could keep a discreet eye on him. His name is still on the door of this apartment where he used to live together with a small group of African nuns from Zambia belonging to a religious order which he himself founded.

Over the years Mr Milingo has gained a reputation as a faith healer in Italy, but has been forbidden from holding healing masses in churches in Rome and Milan after the Vatican got scared about the huge congregations he was attracting.

The Vatican has assured enquirers that the archbishop's monthly pay cheque is still being credited to his bank account.