Possessed is right. Catholicism didn’t come around until at least 250 years after the death of Christ, which in itself is LONG before Russian Orthodoxy (Russia wasn’t even a country yet, let alone having any exposure to Christianity). Churches in the Bible were not united in any way other than their connection to Paul, but seemed to exist purely to serve the people in whatever Roman province they were located in.
This is highly debatable. Irenaeus, writing in c. 180, listed all the bishops of Rome (the popes) up to his time, and described and defended the Church’s hierarchy and Apostolic Tradition.
St. Ignatius, writing in the late first century, also writes about bishops, the sacraments, etc. in a way that is virtually identical to what the Church teaches now. I’ve read some of his writings, so I’m not just basing that judgement off of Wikipedia or some website.
The notion that the churches were not connected is false, as surviving letters from the first and second centuries indicate. There were churches that did not follow the same teachings as the main body of churches, but their version of Christianity was condemned as heretical by Irenaeus and other writers of the time.
EDIT: Sorry to derail your thread, Frink. I’ll post an on topic post in a minute. 😉