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The celebrations were opened on 27 October with a service at which Bishop Friedrich Kramer of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany gave the sermon, as well as a Reformation Day service on 31 October with the Allhelgona Motettkör choir from Lund in Sweden.
Discussions, lectures, and cultural events have explored the historical significance of Haus Hainstein in shaping Protestant cooperation, education, and cultural exchange, particularly between Germany and Sweden.
“The history of Haus Hainstein is a lens for church history,” says Ralf-Peter Fuchs, the Protestant superintendent of Eisenach, a city with special place in Lutheran history, as it was here in the Wartburg castle that the Reformer Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.
Söderblom taught for a time at the University of Leipzig before he became Swedish archbishop in 1914 and offered financial and practical support for the purchase of Haus Hainstein to serve as a centre for youth, in cooperation with the Swedish church and the Wartburg Foundation. During the period of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945, the state took possession of the house.
After the Second World War, Eisenach was in the communist-governed German Democratic Republic but Haus Hainstein was again able to be used by the church to train church workers and church musicians, and as a place for church gatherings and synods.
Today Haus Hainstein is used as a hotel and conference centre, but Fuchs told the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk broadcaster of his vision that it could become an ecumenical centre for the Catholic and Protestant churches. Eisenach also has a significance for the Catholic Church which honours St Elisabeth who lived and worked in the city in the 13th century.
Nathan Söderblom was a strong supporter of ecumenical initiatives and was one of the key initiators of the 1925 Stockholm conference on Life and Work, which ultimately led to the formation of the World Council of Churches.