Why would a religion that seeks total separation between state and religion apply to the state to be recognized as a religion?
It's part of a larger strategy:
Russian adepts of free web data flow plan to register their own religious organization to battle copyright laws. Adherents of the Kopimi, or Copy Me, movement believe the process of exchanging data is sacred and intend to bring the argument to court. Activists in five Russian cities: Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Khabarovsk will officially apply documents to register a church of their own Monday – so that they could launch an assault on copyright laws that “insult religious feelings of the believers”, the chairman of the Russian Pirate Party Pavel Rassudov told Izvestia. “The church registration process will take years but adepts of kopimism will have the right to sue the anti-pirate laws,” Rassudov insisted........The new church intends to stream into being on the wave of 2 recent laws that stirred media frenzy in Russia. The first one is the freshly signed piece of legislation on insulting believers’ feelings that materialized after the furor Pussy Riot’s caused in Moscow Christ the Savior Cathedral. The other one is the new anti-piracy law, which came into force on Thursday, allowing pre-trial blocking of web-pages to protect movies and TV series from unlicensed downloading. Some 1,700 Russian websites blacked out to protest upcoming unwarranted shutting down on August 1.
-- from the thread Digital religion: Russian Pirate Church eyes registration
The Vatican is recognized by a host of nations and has observer status at the UN.
The Pirate Party and Kopists are not one and the same lol
I actually agree with the Pirate party regarding separation of church and state. In parts of Europe it’s destroyed the church’s... because it’s punitive to belong to a church, as the tithing come straight out of your paycheck.