 His parents were bakers near Corbeil.Chenu entered the French Province of the Dominican Order in 1913, taking the name Marie-Dominique and studying at Le Saulchoir, which at the time was located (as a result of the French anti-Church laws of 1905-6) at Kain in Belgium.With the outbreak of World War I and the suspension of teaching at Le Saulchoir, Chenu travelled to Rome in 1914 to study at the "Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum", the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum".