his feet were nailed broke, thus slanting to the side. Another tradition holds that the slanted bar represents the repentant thief and the unrepentant thief that were crucified with Christ, the one to Jesus' right-hand repenting and rising to be with God in Paradise, and one on his left falling to Hades and separation from God. In this manner, it also reminds the viewer of the Last Judgment. 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. Byzantine Empire The Patriarchal cross first regularly appeared on the coinage of the Byzantine Empire starting with the second reign of the Emperor Justinian II, whose second reign was from 705–711. At the beginning of the second reign, the Emperor was depicted on the solidus holding a with a Patriarchal cross at the top of the globe. Until then, the standard practice was to show the with an ordinary cross. 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. 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. Hungary The two-barred cross has been one of the main elements in the coat of arms of Hungary at least since 1190. It appeared during the reign of King Béla III, who was raised in the Byzantine court. He was for a time heir to the throne of the Byzantine Empire and betrothed to the emperor's daughter. When the emperor's wife gave birth to a son, the emperor dissolved his daughter's betrothal to Béla and removed Béla's title of despotes. Soon after Béla left Constantinople when he inherited the Hungarian throne in 1172. The cross started appearing floating in the coat of arms and on the coins from this era. During the middle ages, the two-barred cross became associated with the Árpád dynasty and the Kingdom of Hungary along with the Árpád stripes. The symbol found its way to Western Europe through Hungary, because René the Good, who was related to the House Anjou of Hungary, laid claim to four kingdoms, including Hungary. He