Continued from Part 1 (1998)
It is a strange feeling putting pen to paper again 13 years later about so a controversial yet important a subject as polygamy which must be fully restored in the Body of Christ before both the final gathering of the remnant saints and the second coming of Christ can take place. However, I am not about to re-open the old ministry again now or in the future. My family and I have long since moved on. So what follows is merely a preface to what will now become an ARCHIVE for those who want to study this important topic.
It has been suggested several times in the interim that I give back the old website to the internet but each time I asked Yahweh I was given a very resounding 'NO' in reply. Finally, at the beginning of 2016 I received the go-ahead and hesitantly set about making a revision for full incorporation into the main nccg.org website. It has taken me 8 months of hard work and I am glad it is finally done.
My feelings about this project have been very mixed indeed, alternating between euphoria (as I recalled the deep communion with Yahweh and moments of happy patriarchal family life when it was at its best) and depression (when I remembered the painful loss of wives and children and all the heart-ache both the polygamous and anti-polygamous communities inflicted on me in those early years). So once this archive is completed, I shall once again be moving back to the mission field which, as an evangelist, is where my heart is.
Thirteen years have passed...
It's sometimes hard to believe that I have spent three times as much time away from this ministry as I spent in those busy, dynamic and intense years from 1998 to 2003 when I went semi-public. But it is true. It seems much shorter. Time is a strange creature that observes no consistent rules of geometry.
As you can well imagine a lot of water has gone under the bridge in 13 years so it will not surprise you to learn that the modern Królewiec family of 2016 is a very, very different species to the one that dropped off the internet radar all the way back in 2003. I doubt there are many people still around now who even remember that time for not only have we moved on as a family, but the whole Christian/Messianic polygamy 'community' (if it can even be called that) has doubtless moved on too. Most of my former friends and acquaintances I have since lost track of, with essentially only three keeping in intermittant contact.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge
I am not at all sorry that the 'Wild West' days of American (and to a lesser extent, European) plural marriage are over. And if they're not, then I'm certainly not riding back into town as a 'truant officer' (as once I was). If I have any contact at all, it will be as a distant observer and no more, though really I am not much interested. The cowboys can have their madness which I want no part of or association with. Most of them should never have left the sensible confines of monogamy and I am quite sure their first wives and children - if they have survived the ordeal of their husbands' folly - will agree with me.
I have to emphatically state therefore, so that nobody is in any doubt, that this article does not portend a new and active flurry of written materials to come, because unless Elohim (God) sends an angel from out of heaven to me and orders me to resume writing in no uncertain terms, I am most definitely not returning to this ministry. That's why you'll find no email or contact addresses of any kind.
This article, then, must be clearly understood to be no more than an addendum to all that went before, which I believe is more than adequate in describing the Holy Echad vision of Christian/Messianic plural marriage. There is nothing I wish to modify in that and such refinements as I might wish to make I will do in the mission field where it is being used. This article is simply a courtesy to former readers who knew me, as well as, no doubt, to new ones who may chance upon this site, so as not to leave anyone 'up in the air'. If you're curious as to what happens hereafter to my family, then I have to say, without apology, that you will have to remain curious. And if you're wise, you'll simply move on as we have done.
I have left most of the old articles pretty much as they were other than to modify some terminology and to update some of the history. I have also removed all of the old pictures which, though not the actual persons portrayed, tended to create character perceptions not in line with the real characters. So these I have substituted for sketch cariacatures. I have also tried to make even more anyomous the persons who are a part of the original website's historical narrative story as I have absolutely no desire to stir up old controversies and hurts again. The only exception has been a complete re-write of one of the earliest essays, How It All Started: Courtship & Polygamy in the Królewiec Family, so that means that most of what I had planned to cover in this article of an historical and chronological nature has already been done in that newly revised edition.
The history of my family is not unlike the history of Poland itself. And what a history that has been. Once a great empire that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and from the Oder to the outskirts of Moscow, it totally vanished in the Third Partition between Russia, Austria and Prussia (1795), and apart for a brief return during the Napoleonic period as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, did not resurrect until the ashes of the First World War had settled (1918). Even then it was not to know much peace, followed as it was by a failed, though costly, Bolshevik invasion, then a Nazi one, and finally a long and rapacious communist occupation which no true Pole remembers with any affection. Poland experienced radical border changes, moving eastwards deep into Russia before being pushed westwards into the heartland of Germany. With all the changes that have happened, it does very much feel as though the spiritual geography of my soul has been tossed back and forth by the tides of adversity, depositing it where it is today in, for the most part, entirely new 'territory'. Nothing will ever be the same again.
My family, like Poland, moved far east and then was forced far west
Today my family consists of my third wife, Kryztina, who has remained faithful to me consistently over a quarter of a century of married life, my sixth wife, Angelka, my seventh wife, Zyta, and those few children who have not yet grown up and left home. We are an 'international' marriage this time as all are from different countries. They are a very different character mix to the threesome that went before them, namely, my second wife Isabel, my fourth, Kasia and, of course, Kryztina who were - and are - either all from the same or otherwise shared a common culture (like Suszana, my first wife).
The first threesome: Isabel, Kryztina and Kasia
The present threesome: Kryztina, Angelka and Zyta
The international nature of my present family has made for completely different experiences and challenges that were not present before when all the wives were from a common culture with shared values and perceptions. The rough timeline below shows the makeup of my family over the years:
If my wife Kryztina wants to add to her older essays, or my newer wives Angelka and Zyta want to write something new of their own in the future, then I will insert these into the website, though I shall neither be expecting nor pushing them to do so. It will be entirely up to them. None of them are currently writers or feel called to internet ministry of this kind at the present time. At this stage nobody wants to or sees a need to. We would all rather just be involved in the work of evangelism which is our first love, most of which is now in the Third World where polygamy is accepted and where we can combine our own experience and expertise there with general witnessing. Indeed one of our old friends, 'Pilgrim Barry', from the early ministry has likewise moved from Canada to Africa where he and his family are taking care of the homeless, the poor and orphans, and are very happy in their work.
What is my view of polygamy today? And have I succeeded in my original vision? I have to truthfully say that with the break-up of my last family that for many years I lost a lot of faith not only in the vision of echad marriage but in purpose of polygamy itself. I have gradually come back around to more or less where I was before, with a few modified beliefs founded on the raw experiences of the interim, which have been incorporated into the old articles. So, no, I do not consider myself to have succeeded by a long stretch, and for the last decade we have been living rotational or 'multiple monogamy' albeit it under the same roof.
I do know that the original vision of Echad Polygamy works because we most of us tasted it before my earlier family got battered. It was imperfect and the vision was never taken anywhere near to completion, so it most definitely is possible and absolutely worth it when it works. I am just not sure I am the right person to get it to work. Building an echad family takes many painstaking years and requires huge adjustments in lifestyle to function smoothly. It also, I think, requires the energies of youth to ground and cement it, a luxury I no longer enjoy. And truthfully I have still not fully recovered from the failure of the first attempt. The stress of it all destroyed my health as polygamy in general has done to so many Western patriarchs. So I most certainly do not view myself as a rôle-model at this stage. I failed. But I am now carrying on at a much gentler pace and focussing on the work of the Gospel, a passion shared by all three wives. And in respect of the latter, I think it would be true to say that we are ahead of where we were in my former family.
The vision remains alive and clear
Do I hope that my estranged wives will one day return? Of course. I have waited for them for a long time and can do nothing less but I am also realistic enough to know that life must move on and that none may actually return. I have been waiting nearly 30 years for my first wife to return, a possibility that admittedly looks very remote now. But there is still the possibility of others realising where they belong and of coming home. The work of the Kingdom - my first joy - ever calls and keeps me busy and fulfilled, and each of my current three wives is a wonderful support. Perhaps Yahweh, in His great mercy and grace will see fit to make all things right one day and bring to pass what I was not able to do for all the best intentions in the world. I have not given up even if I am even more starkly aware of the reality of the challenges now, more than I ever was thirteen years ago.
I stopped 'looking' for new wives long, long ago. I believe firmly that a man should have his eyes on Yah'shua (Jesus), take care of his existing family, and let Yahweh bring any other wives home in His own time and way, if at all, per pro Isaiah 4:1. They will have to find their way to me through prayer and character transformation, so to find me they will have to find Elohim (God)! I long ago concluded, as my earlier articles testify again and again, that it is not spiritually healthy for a man to constantly have a roving eye. It's not good for him and its not good for his wives. He should always be content with what he has and work to make that succeed. Yahweh will add to His family, if He wills it, when He wills it, and he need not concern himself any further. The 'polygamy meat-market', as I deridingly call it, is totally contrary to the workings of the Spirit of Elohim (God).
Pathway to the Królewiec Family today:
Surrender to Christ ⇒ Conversion to ministry ⇒ Enter family
My hope is that others will take up the baton and that this website will be a valuable resource for them. Kryztina, Angelka, Zyta and myself certainly pray that it will be. A greater portion of my time and life-energy (including that of wives who have contributed over the years) was invested into it which I would hate to see go to waste. The price to birth it was a heavy one. And that is perhaps the main reason why, after thirteen years of being offline, I have agreed to make it available again as a resource. My reward will therefore consist of it blessing you, the reader, in some way and contribute to your happiness and fulfillment in Yah'shua our Saviour. Amen.
Lublin in spring - there are always new possibilities
Author: SBSK
