The Spanish Civil War saw the violent suppression of the Abbey of Montserrat. Of the 278 priests and 583 religious men and women killed in Catalonia by Republican forces, 22 were monks of the Abbey of Montserrat. The Spanish Republican authorities and the authorities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, such as Lluís Companys, Ventura Gassol and Joan Casanovas, tried to stop anticlerical violence and helped many priests and religious people to hide and leave the country.