What do they do to the dead?

No matter how much he thought, Eliot couldn't understand the church's intention of doing all this. 

Killing so many saints by extracting even the last bits of their Aether in a remote place like this... How could it possibly benefit from such a thing? What were saints to them? Some disposable goods? Was that why they gathered almost everyone with holy power throughout the continent? To use them up like this?

But In contrast, the more healthy and powerful saints were under the church's control, the deeper its influence and control would be over the continent. They could expand their faith and spread their belives, creating more cathedrals and churches and gathering more believers.

Yet by doing this, weren't they actually ruining themselves?

'Just what's on their mind...'