Paul Leo-Mary Serruys, C.I.C.M. (19 November 1912 – 16 August 1999) was a Belgian missionary, sinologist, scholar, and educator, best known for his studies on the grammar of Classical Chinese, oracle bone script, and on the varieties of Chinese.

Paul Leo-Mary Serruys was born on 19 November 1912 in Heule, a village in the West Flanders region of Belgium. Serruys was one of seven children, and his father was a successful brewer. His primary education was in local village schools, after which he began boarding at a Catholic high school in nearby Kortrijk. The school required students to become fluent in French and German, as well as in the Latin and Greek Classics, which stimulated Serruys' interest in linguistics and philology. During his time in secondary school, Serruys became a strong supporter of the Flemish Movement.

In 1930, after he completed secondary school, Serruys followed his older brother Henry in joining the novitiate of the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), a Roman Catholic missionary order focused on East Asia and Africa. Inspired by the examples of prominent Catholic missionaries in China such as Matteo Ricci and Theophiel Verbist, the founder of the C.I.C.M., Serruys and his brother began intensively studying Mandarin Chinese, Classical Chinese, and other Chinese dialects at the Catholic University of Leuven. After several years of study, Serruys was ordained a Catholic priest on 4 August 1936 and departed for China one year later in August 1937.

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