Patriarchal cross

The top beam represents the plaque bearing the inscription "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews" (often abbreviated in the Latinate "INRI" and in the Greek as "INBI").

One tradition says that this comes from the idea that as Jesus Christ took his last breath, the bar to which his feet were nailed broke, thus slanting to the side.

Still another explanation of the slanted crossbar would suggest the Cross Saltire, as tradition holds that the Apostle St. Andrew introduced Christianity to lands north and west of the Black Sea: today's Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, and Romania.

At the beginning of the second reign, the Emperor was depicted on the solidus holding a globus cruciger with a Patriarchal cross at the top of the globe.

The Emperor Theodosius III, who ruled from 715 to 717, made the Patriarchal cross a standard feature of the gold, silver and bronze coinage minted in Constantinople.

[2] After his short reign ended, the practice was discontinued under his successor, Leo III, due to his iconoclastic views, and was not revived again until the middle of the eighth century by Artavasdus.

It is also the badge of the Lithuanian Air Force and forms the country's highest award for bravery, the Order of the Cross of Vytis.

The Patriarchal Cross appears on the Pahonia, used at various times as the coat of arms of Grand Duchy of Lithuania for centuries and of Belarus.

The territory of present-day Slovakia was an integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 10th century until the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.