"I am your humble and obedient servant," Milingo wrote in a letter to Pope John Paul II released by the Vatican.

Milingo's Korean wife, Maria Sung, blasted the Vatican's claim, charging her husband has been drugged and held against his will. She said she started a hunger strike to demand Milingo's return.

The 71-year-old Zambian archbishop stunned the church when he married Sung in the mass ceremony in New York on May 27.

Threatened with excommunication, he went to the Vatican and met with the pontiff last week.

That was followed by meetings with church officials - culminating in yesterday's announcement.

"I now rededicate my life to the Catholic Church with all my heart," Milingo wrote in the letter, which was dated Saturday but revealed yesterday.

"I renounce my life together with Maria Sung and my dealings with Rev. Moon and his Family Federation for World Peace."

The Vatican refuses to reveal Milingo's whereabouts, saying only that he is on a spiritual retreat.

Sung's appeals to be reunited with her husband have been ignored.

"I am convinced he is a prisoner," she said, vowing to go to the police.

"We married before God, and if he decides it is no longer true, I am ready to die. But I don't believe my husband will go back on his decision," Sung said.

"If he says he wants to leave me, in his own voice, I'm sure he's under the effect of drugs," the 43-year-old doctor said.

"I will continue fasting until I die and my spirit will be near him."

She said on Monday she may be pregnant with Milingo's child.

"She believes the Vatican is trying to steal her husband," said the Rev. Philip Schanker, a spokesman for the Unification Church.

Church experts in the U.S. said the already semi-retired Milingo will probably be allowed to resume some limited priestly duties.

With Post Wire Services