Your comments about the Russian Church and its past history of often being more open to a more "flexible" approach to the non-Orthodox are correct.
This is perhaps best seen in the context of a tendency that has been commented on by some scholars of the Orthodox world: i.e. that the more secure a particular part of the Orthodox Church is, the more flexible it can afford to be.
The Russian Church was not flexible during the Tartar yoke, but reached a zenith of flexibility at the height of the power and reach of the Russian empire. It's flexibility again contracted after the fall of the czars, then expanded at the height of strength of the Soviet Union. It has again contracted during these economically and politically uncertain times after the breakup of the Soviet state.
Similar things were apparently true of the Greek-speaking Church: e.g. much more flexible during the powerful days of the Byzantine empire than it was under the Turkish yoke.
This can be seen as vacillating, but it is not -- it is a reflection of the fact that appropriate economia varies from place to place and age to age. The Russian Church never recognized the "validity" of Western sacraments in the sense that Western theologians think about the concept of "validity." To the extent that they did or do, this was and is the reflection of a Western captivity of thought.
The question is not whether non-Orthodox sacraments are considered to be "valid," but how a particular part of the Orthodox Church will, through the exercise of economia, treat non-Orthodox approaching the Orthodox Church desiring reception into communion or pastoral ministry of some sort.
"The Russian Church never recognized the "validity" of Western sacraments in the sense that Western theologians think about the concept of "validity." To the extent that they did or do, this was and is the reflection of a Western captivity of thought.
The question is not whether non-Orthodox sacraments are considered to be "valid," but how a particular part of the Orthodox Church will, through the exercise of economia, treat non-Orthodox approaching the Orthodox Church desiring reception into communion or pastoral ministry of some sort."
Actually, as recently as the early 90s, it was the Russian theologians who were calling for the allowance not only of non-Orthodox Catholics to receive the Mysteries from our priests but also vice versa. Such a ermission would have been, admittedly an exercise of a sort of blanket economia, but not because of any questions about the validity of the Western Church's sacraments but rather because of the fact of the schism. As we know, that didn't happen because the Churches of Orthodoxy didn't agree, but the fact is that the validity of the sacraments was not in question. Previous to this, the Russian Church was the first, I believe, to recognize the validity of Western Rite marriages and thus dispensing with the necessity of re-marriage of converts.