Orthodox Cross
Three Bars, Eight Ends
The Lenten Ninth Hour hymn, in Shann's English of 1891, calls the whole cross that balance and names no footrest; Archbishop Anthony Medvedev reads the tilted bar as its beam.
G. V. Shann, Euchology: A Manual of Prayers of the Holy Orthodox Church (Kidderminster, 1891), The Ninth Hour, kontakion for the fasting time; Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev), 'The Most Just Scales', ROCOR official website
A cross with three bars: a top board, the crossbeam and a slanted footrest.
More context
Three bars distinguish it. The topmost is the titulus, the title Pilate set on the cross (John 19:19); the middle is the crossbeam for the arms; the lowest is the footrest, or suppedaneum. Counting its ends, Russian usage calls it the eight-pointed cross, and the Old Believers, who rejected Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the 1650s, recognise no other. The slant is read through a hymn of the Lenten Ninth Hour: between the two thieves the cross is 'a balance of righteousness'. One thief sinks to Hades under his blasphemy; the other rises to divine knowledge. Russian preaching, as in Archbishop Anthony Medvedev's sermon, makes the tilted bar that balance's beam, raised towards the penitent thief.
Light
Archbishop Anthony Medvedev saw in it Christ's all-justness and all-goodness joined: he weighs and tests, and he also calls.
Shadow
After Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the 1650s, Old Believers recognised only the eight-pointed cross, making its shape a mark of the schism.