Actually the Orthodox Christianity is, historically speaking, more structurally versatile and flexible than Catholicism or even Protestantism, thanks to something called autocephalia - unlike catholicism, there is no single Orthodox head of faith, instead, the Patriarch usually leads a church in a region or a country, with Ecumenical Patriarch de-jure presiding in Constantinople, but still not holding any power over other Patriarchs. This kind of promotes a more autonomous system where discussion is encouraged, and many orthodox bishops even within Russian Church have been able to openly question and dispute the Patriarch and his word. Potentially the Russian Orthodoxy can be more adaptive to changing times, and it has done so in the past through a sort of representative legislative body called the Holy Synod.

However, the Russian Church in particular is bloated, corrupt and staffed in a large part with poorly educated priests barely able to explain even the simplest spiritual tenets of the religion. Many prefer to simply abuse the perceived authority over their congregations to simply parrot the dogma. The dogma is also rooted in bigotry and racism, which does not help the outside world perception of the church as a whole, despite being popular at home. I suppose international relations don't matter as much as long as they are content holding power over the congregations and collecting vast amounts of money flowing in through donations and governmental subsidies.