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By PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

Texas State Troopers raided the world's largest polygamist compound in Eldorado this week, taking more than 400 children of polygamists into custody. A 16-year-old girl called a local shelter for help, saying she had been forced into an unwanted marriage, prompting the raid.

The children at the compound are offspring of those who still adhere to Prophet Joseph Smith's teaching of "The Principle of Multiple Marriage." The members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints contend they are faithfully practicing "The Principle" as originated and taught by the prophet in the early 19th century. The "apostate" Mormons - just one sect of Smith's original church scattered when he died in 1844 - discarded "The Principle" in 1890 over a matter of convenience, say FLDS leaders. At stake was admission to the Union and FLDS leaders say Mormons disobeyed Smith, jeopardizing their own eternal rewards.

Smith was married to 34 women, some as young as 14 years old and some who were already married, according to Web site wivesofJosephSmith.org. Large polygamist FLDS communities are located today in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Some estimate that the largely hidden church has up to 40,000 members in North America.

The Fundamentalist Church purchased 1,500 acres in Eldorado in 2004, a West Texas town of 2,000 about 50 miles south of San Angelo. Schleicher County Sherriff David Doran said to the Tyler Morning Telegraph in 2006, "We made it clear to them what Texas law said about marriage, that we would be enforcing the law and if there was a violation, we'd come after them."

APOSTATES

The two groups descended from Smith have had little to do with each other for more than 100 years. Even today there is little love between them.

"God wants us to stop patronizing businesses of the apostates (Mormons)" said FLDS leader Warren Jeffs in a 2004 speech. "Stop doing business with them, strengthening their hand by your labors to fight our prophet."

The FLDS is the one suffering from delusion, said East Texas Mormons.

"We've been fighting this battle for more than a hundred years," said Laura Mikulecky, a public affairs director for the Tyler Stake of the Mormon Church. "Mormons disavowed polygamy in 1890. It was a condition for Utah to become a state. At that time, the Prophet of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, declared polygamy was not to be a part of Mormon Church. We adhered to that and these others (the FLDS) did not."

Mrs. Mikulecky is the public affairs director of the Athens and Tyler Stake of the nicknamed "Mormon" segment of a church that splintered into various sub-sects after the death of Smith in 1844.

There are an estimated 8,500 Mormons in East Texas, she said, and about 2,500 in the Tyler Stake. In a 2006 special report by the Tyler Paper, she explained polygamy was ordained by God in Smith's church.

"When the Lord says something is all right, it's all right," she said, speaking of Smith's Principle of Multiple Marriage doctrine. "When it's not all right, it's not all right."

Woodruff heard from God decades after Smith introduced polygamy, she said.

"When that time was over and the new prophet (Woodruff) gave us the new rules, those were the rules the church then went by. The prophet heard from God and polygamy was stopped."

But some church splinter groups, most notably the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints founded by Joseph Smith III, opposed polygamy at its inception decades before Mormons renounced it by the "revelation" given to Woodruff.

"When the Mormons came West (after Smith's death) and so many men died there were a lot of women who did not have husbands," said Mrs. Mikulecky. "The Lord told (Mormon leader) Brigham Young that some of the men could covenant to be married to more than one wife."

Young married 27 women, including 15-year-old Clarissa Decker and Lucy Bigelow, 16. After The Principle was renounced, Utah was admitted to the Union. There are more than 100 "faith communities" that consider themselves the "true successor" to the church founded by Smith, according to religoustolerance.org

The Mormons are the true church, said Mrs. Mikulecky.

"We believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is the only true living church upon the face of the whole earth," she said. "We believe every person born on earth will receive immortality, but if you leave the church, you are no longer entitled to the blessings it can afford you."