The Maronite community of Cyprus was the second largest community of Eastern Christians, after the Greeks. During the occupation of the island by officially Latin states, with the first Lusignan and then by the Venetians, the Maronites increased in number, thanks to the many properties and privileges granted to them by the new rulers of the island; they were present in sixty villages and, as estimated by Hackett,[5] the number of faithful rose to around 180,000. In 1514, the Maronite Patriarch informed Pope Leo X about the machinations of and the seizure of Maronite churches by the Latin bishop of Nicosia.[citation needed]