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Polish Priest Returns to Altar After Knife Attack
Confirmed
In Short: Father Adrian Mantykiewicz, who survived a knife attack that killed a fellow priest, returned to the altar at the Benedictine sisters' abbey in Jaroslaw.
Two days after surviving a knife attack that killed a fellow priest, Father Adrian Mantykiewicz returned to the altar at the Benedictine sisters' abbey in Jaroslaw with a message centered on forgiveness.
The Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reported that the attacker, Ihor M., a 31-year-old Ukrainian citizen, has a police record in Germany and was entered into a Czech database as an undesirable person.
The newspaper said the preliminary information had been obtained by Polish police from foreign law enforcement services.
The abbey said funeral rites for Father Stanislaw Zbojniewicz, 67, who had been a priest for 40 years, would begin Sept. 28 in Jaroslaw with a rosary and Mass celebrated by Archbishop Adam Szal of Przemysl.
The suspect in the attack is a 31-year-old Ukrainian citizen, and a Polish court subsequently ordered him held in custody.
Ukraine's Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar also said he believed the attack was not nationally motivated.
When asked what concerned them most, 50% of Ukrainians cited corruption, while 40% cited Russia’s mass missile and drone attacks.
Background
A Polish priest died and four others were injured when a Ukrainian man attacked a Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, southern Poland, with a kitchen knife.
What's confirmed
- "In a special way, I ask you to pray for our attacker and for the grace of conversion for him," Mantykiewicz said.
- The priest connected his appeal to the abbey's experience after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- The Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reported that Ihor M. has a police record in Germany regarding an incident with officers and was entered into a Czech database as an undesirable person.
- The newspaper said the preliminary information had been obtained by Polish police from foreign law enforcement services.
- The abbey said funeral rites for Zbojniewicz, 67, who had been a priest for 40 years, would begin Sept. 28 in Jaroslaw with a rosary and Mass celebrated by Archbishop Adam Szal of Przemysl.
- Learn more Warsaw, Poland — September 28, 2026 Share on Bluesky Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email to a friend Print Two days after surviving a knife attack that killed a fellow priest, Father Adrian Mantykiewicz returned to the altar at the Benedictine sisters' abbey in Jaroslaw with a message centered on forgiveness.
- “I hope people will remember the fate of priests and lay Catholics now suffering in prison, showing through prayers that they’re not indifferent,” said Poczobut, a law lecturer and journalist who was freed in April from an eight-year hard labor term.
- “Having no contact with the regime and no guarantees for my freedom, I’ll only find out what’s planned for me when I get to the border. But while I’m afraid like everyone else, I can’t let my life be determined by fears of arrest,” he said before crossing the Polish-Belarusian border and posting his picture in Grodno, at the Niemen River, Sept. 8 on X.
- Poczobut was released with nine others, including Father Grzegorz Gawel, a Polish Carmelite friar from Krakow, and allowed to go abroad after interventions from the United States and Poland.
- Meanwhile, Belarus’ exiled ecumenical Christian Vision organization said more Polish priests could also have been ordered to leave than officially reported, adding that some had requested Belarusian citizenship in order to remain in their parishes.
- Poczobut, who was raised in a traditional Catholic home, is an essayist, blogger, activist and leading member of the Polish minority in Belarus.
- ROME — Pope Leo XIV will retrace his steps as a missionary priest when he returns home to Peru in November in his longest trip to date that will also take him to Uruguay and Argentina, where his Argentine predecessor Pope Francis never returned.
What's still developing
- He was wounded in a knife attack at a… pic.twitter.com/dx6o0pAIMH “Whatever happened, the evil that took place here in our abbey, we must overcome with goodness, love and forgiveness,” he said.
- He is a victim of a knife attack and in his first homily after the tragedy, he left the county in owe with his message of forgiveness, still with fresh wounds very visible on his face.
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- Sources told The Independent none of the “VIP” trains with European officials were involved in the attack.
- The operator also reported a train in Volyn, just a mile from the Polish border, was hit, but no one was injured in the attack.
- "Russia's barbaric strikes at the Ukraine-Poland border in Yahodyn are not just a continuation of its attacks on our state borders," Mr Sybiha said on X.
- The former prime minister was alerted at 5am on Sunday as he returned from a security conference in Kyiv after another passenger train behind his was forced to evacuate near Yagodyn, near the Polish border.
- Speaking on Monday, a Kremlin spokesperson did not deny that Russia was responsible for the attack, saying its forces would continue to operate across Ukrainian territory.