* Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky; Led Ukraine Catholics

Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, 86, the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholics who returned triumphantly to his homeland in 1991 after 53 years in exile during Soviet rule. Lubachivsky was hailed as a hero by the Vatican for struggling to preserve the church after Soviet dictator Josef Stalin outlawed it in 1946. Greek Catholics have services similar to those of Eastern Orthodox churches but owe allegiance to the pope. The Ukrainian church, with about 4 million members, is concentrated in the western part of Ukraine in areas that were under Polish and Austrian rule until World War II, when they became part of the Soviet Union. Lubachivsky, who was born in the town of Dolyna in the province of Galicia, left the Ukraine in 1938 as a young priest to study in Austria. He lived in the United States from 1947 to 1980, serving the final year as Metropolitan Archbishop of Philadelphia. He moved to the Vatican in 1980 and became head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church after the death of Cardinal Joseph Slipy in 1984. Lubachivsky, a U.S. citizen, headed the Ukrainian church from Rome until the crumbling of communist power allowed him to take up residence in Lviv On Thursday in Lviv, the church said.