Flag of Greece movements such as the "Etaireia", the First Greek National Assembly, convening in January 1822, took steps to disassociate itself from the "Etaireia"s legacy and portray nascent Greece as a "conventional", ordered nation-state. As such not only were the regional councils abolished in favour of a central administration, but it was decided to abolish all revolutionary flags and adopt a universal national flag. The reasons why the particular arrangement (white cross on blue) was selected, instead of the more popular blue cross on a white field, remain unknown. On 15 March 1822, the Provisional Government, by Decree Nr. 540, laid down
Flag of Greece flags was the "labarum". In the surviving pictorial sources of the middle and later Empire, primarily the illustrated Skylitzes Chronicle, the predominating colours are red and blue in horizontal stripes, with a cross often placed in the centre of the flag. Other common symbols, prominently featuring on seals, were depictions of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints, but these represent personal rather than family or state symbols. Western European-style heraldry was largely unknown until the last centuries of the Empire. There is no mention of any "state" flag until the mid-14th century, when a Spanish atlas, the "Conosçimiento de todos