About new churches - I live in a rather small town - 90000 inhabitants. We have 3 churches. On Sundays they are full. On great holidays it is difficult to enter (and in Russian churches there are no sitting places!). On Epiphany we have a very long queue just to take some water - one would spend more than an hour. So we really need another church, as the town is growing up fast.
I never heard of baptizing in the forests, but I was baptized at somebody's home in a bath - not because of top secrecy, I suppose, but it was easier so. And my mother (atheist, of course!) asked me not to show the cross to anyone - so I tied it to my clothes inside. But it was on the edge of times.