Poland: Parish mourns murdered priest

Fr Grzegorz Dymek

Source: Fides

The parish of Our Lady of Fatima church in Kłobuck, a small town in northern Poland on the outskirts of Czestochowa, is in mourning after their parish priest was murdered last week.

Fr Grzegorz Dymek, 58, was found strangled in the rectory. The crime occurred on Thursday evening, 13 February. The alarm was raised around 7pm after shouts were heard from the rectory. When the police arrived at the scene, they found the lifeless body of the priest and a man who was trying to escape.

The suspect, a 52-year-old former policeman who had been dismissed from service in 2001 for disciplinary reasons, was immediately arrested and confessed to the murder of the priest, without explaining what had driven him to this brutal crime. The autopsy of the priest's body showed that the cause of death was asphyxiation.

Fr Dymek had worked in the parish of Our Lady of Fatima since its foundation in 1998, after being entrusted with the task of founding and building a new church. Here he served as parish priest for more than twenty years without interruption.

In a letter, the Archbishop of Częstochowa, Wacław Depo, urged the faithful to "contemplate death with the spirit of Christian hope". What happened to Fr Grzegorz Dymek was "received with disbelief and sadness by the Presbytery of Czestochowa. The circumstances of the death and the motive are being investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office and we hope that soon the reasons for this cruel murder will be known."

"In the meantime, I ask everyone to pray for the deceased priest and for the parish community orphaned by Fr Grzegorz. Let us also pray for the perpetrator. May God show him his mercy and grant him the grace of conversion", concluded the Archbishop, who will preside over the solemn funeral of Fr Grzegorz Dymek on Friday 21 February at 11am. He will be buried in the local cemetery.