Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday that the 31-year-old suspect was in police custody and would face “the full severity of Polish law.”
Officers were called to the Benedictine Sisters’ Abbey in the southeastern Polish town of Jarosław at around 9:30 a.m. after receiving a report of an assault. Police said the suspect had stabbed four men and a woman. All five were taken to hospital, where one of the injured priests later died.
A prosecutor said two of the injured people were in serious condition. Regional governor Teresa Kubas-Hul had earlier put the number at one.
“The killer from Jarosław is in the hands of the Polish police. Investigative steps are underway,” Tusk wrote on X. “The perpetrator is a Ukrainian citizen. He will be punished with the full severity of Polish law. My thoughts are with the loved ones of the victims of this brutal attack.”
President Karol Nawrocki called for the circumstances of the attack to be established “quickly and thoroughly.” He offered condolences to the victim’s family and the abbey community, and wished those injured a swift recovery.
“In the face of such acts, the state must be strong, act quickly and enforce the law without hesitation,” he wrote on X. “I expect the relevant authorities to establish all the circumstances of this tragedy quickly and thoroughly.”
‘He looked like a madman’
The attack took place at a retreat center within the 17th-century abbey complex. A nun told RMF FM that the attacker entered while the gate was open following a visit by a group of young people.
Another nun told Polish news website Wirtualna Polska: “The man who barged in with a knife simply started killing.
“It was a random man. We don’t know him. He looked like a madman, in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, even though it was cold today,” she added.
Prosecutors are investigating the attack, and authorities have not established a motive.
Jarosław has declared a period of mourning until the end of the week.