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→Life: corrected translation
Fr. Seraphim himself was experienced in the [[Jesus Prayer]]. He considered obedience to be absolutely necessary to practice the Prayer. He said that if a person with hard work achieved the skill to recite the Jesus Prayer, but did not healed the soul through obedience, if he will not renounce his own will, then the prayer, uttered out of habit, would not be that true inner unceasing prayer of which the ascetics wrote, but it whoud remain only the words, because a proud mind could not unite with the name of Jesus Christ - this incomprehensible Humility.
Fr. Seraphim knew from his own experience what the unceasing prayer of the heart is. A well-known elder John (Krestiankin), who was tonsured a monk by Fr. Seraphim in 1966 in Sukhumi, writes in one letter to some person about the way the Lord gives His gifts and takes them away: "In the youth my spiritual father received the gift of unceasing Jesus prayer and the fullness of joy in it, and then the Lord took this gift away, and all his life Fr. Seraphim looked for the lost coin – he worked humbly and patiently – the gift was returned to him by the Lord a few days before his death - as a witness that the Lord had accepted his tears his for the whole life".
On [[December 18]], 1975, during the vigil, Fr. Seraphim felt ill. He went to his bed. All the time the elder recited the [[Jesus Prayer]] aloud, and when he became tired, he asked the others to continue reciting it. For two weeks, he partook of Holy [[Communion]] daily. Being fully conscious, the Elder was honored to see many of his brethren in the spirit, who, according to him, were singing the [[sticheron]] "Pre-eternal Council" ("Βουλὴν προαιώνιον", sticheron of Annunciation of the Mother of God). And then the elder in a weak voice sang: "O taste and see that the Lord is good. Alleluia." After the vision, he said, "What I have prayed all my life and what I was searching for, it is opened now in my heart, my soul is filled with grace, so that I can not even hold it." After this he said, "Now I'm going to die". On [[December 31]] he closed his eyes for the last time and the next day, on [[January 1]], 1976, the elder reposed.
