Priest wounded in knife attack at Polish monastery: ‘Don’t blame the Ukrainians’

“Don’t blame the nation the perpetrator comes from” — that was the firm request of Father Adrian, the priest wounded in the knife attack that shook Poland. Just two days after the attack that took the life of one priest and wounded four others at the Benedictine sisters’ abbey in Jarosław, the cleric returned to celebrate Mass — with bandages on his head and hand and bruises on his face — and urged the faithful not to blame all Ukrainians, as The Kyiv Independent reports.

The attack happened on 24 September, when Ukrainian citizen Ihor M., 31, stabbed five people at the monastery, killing Catholic priest Stanisław Zbojnowicz and wounding four others, three of them clerics. During the 26 September Mass, Father Adrian said: “I would like to ask you not to blame the nation the perpetrator comes from. The evil was done by a concrete person, who is responsible for his actions,” inviting the faithful to respond with “love, support and understanding.”

The wounded priest said he has forgiven the suspected attacker and asked the faithful to pray for him “to receive the grace of repentance.” He recalled that Ukrainians came to the monastery after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and received support from local residents — support that, he said, the community should continue.

Polish prosecutors have charged Ihor M. with murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm; psychiatric experts found he was experiencing symptoms of an acute psychotic disorder, while the court ordered his detention.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack on 24 September as a “terrible crime,” while Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, stressed the attack was not nationally motivated. The attack came amid rising anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland and tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv; Polish officials and church leaders have warned against collective blame. On 25 September, Polish Bishop Krzysztof Zadarko warned in Warsaw: “shifting blame from one person onto an entire society, onto an entire ethnic or national group, is abuse.”