MOSCOW  A Moscow court sentenced an American pastor to more than three years in prison on Monday for illegally bringing a box of hunting ammunition into Russia.

The pastor, Phillip H. Miles, an evangelist from the Christ Community Church in Conway, South Carolina, had been held in prison since his arrest on Feb. 3.

He was charged with failing to declare a $25 box of hunting rounds. He intended to give the bullets as a gift to a fellow pastor and hunting enthusiast in Perm, a city in the Ural Mountains region in Russia’s center, where he was involved in missionary work.

For this, Judge Olga Drozdova of the Golovinsky District Court sentenced Mr. Miles to three years and two months in prison, despite testimony attesting to his many years of service in Russia and an impassioned 30-minute plea for clemency delivered by Mr. Miles himself in court on Friday.