Tserents/Dzerents studied at Venice, at the San Lazzaro degli Armeni of the Mekhitarist Order between 1831 and 1837 and continued his education in Paris (1848–1853).

Among with his daughter he moved to Tiflis in 1878, and worked as a teacher in the Nersisyan Armenian gymnasium.

During that period as a doctor he visited Van, Alashkert, Basean and other towns of Western Armenia.

The novel Thoros of Levon (1877) was dedicated to the tragic events in the history of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in the 12th century.

Tserents' novel Theodoros Rshtuni (1881) is about the historic struggle of the 7th century for a strong centralized state.