Ukraine Church hope

by our Rome correspondent
IN THE next few days, the Vatican's special delegation to Moscow for talks with Orthodox leaders is expected to return to Rome bringing new hope for full automony for Ukrainian Catholics.
Recognition of the Church in the Ukraine with its estimated five million faithful, is a precondition for the restoration of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Holy See and for a papal visit to the USSR, tentatively scheduled for 1991.
The Vatican delegation left Rome last weekend. It comprises representatives of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and is led by the 60-year-old Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, the Council's honorary president.
Stalin forcibly incorporated the Ukrainian Church with Orthodoxy in 1946, forcing the faithful underground. Orthodoxy has always been reluctant to cede its ecclesiastical authority over the region.
Because of the delicacy of the Ukrainian issue for the Vatican's relations not only with Soviet state authorities but also with the Orthodox Church, no details were released on the mission.
John Ryan'