#0559

There are indeed several schisms mentioned in the series. Schism is accepted by volunteers in the plural sense.

“Exactly,” I said,watching Ellington frown out of the corner of my eye. “We represent the true humantradition, the one permanent victory over cruelty and chaos. We’re aninvincible army, but not a victorious one. We’ve had different names throughouthistory, but all the words that describe us are false and all attempts toorganize us fail. Right now we’re called V.F.D., but all our schisms andarguments might cause us to disappear. It won’t matter. People like us alwaysslip through the net. Our true home is the imagination, and our kingdom is thewide-open world.”[Shouldn’t You Be In School?, Chapter Nine]

“I could tell you stories, Baudelaires,” Count Olaf said in a muffledwheeze. “I could tell you secrets about people and places that you’dnever dream of. I could tell you about arguments and schisms thatstarted before you were born. I could even tell you things aboutyourselves that you could never imagine.[The End, Chapter Seven]

So it seems that volunteers and villains alike use the word “schism” to describe any argument which tears the organization apart, forcing people to choose sides. It’s part of the traditional V.F.D. slang. This is confusing because there’s clearly a difference between THE Schism™ and a schism. This confusion might explain why Jacques tells Jerome that Olaf is responsible for a schism:

For years this organization has behaved in ways that were as noble as they were secret, but recently this organization has experienced a schism, a word which here means “a member suddenly behaving in a greedy and violent manner thus dividing the organization into two arguing groups”. The member I am speaking of—I will just call him O, though currently he prefers S—has recently done a great deal of vicious, unfair and impolite acts that I shudder to describe.[The un-Authorized Autobiography, p.123]

He carefully “a” schism, not THE schism. The original schism happened when Kit and Dewey were four years old, so it’s extremely unlikely that Olaf (who was also a child at a time) had anything to do with it.

“So I’m told,” Kit said. “I was four years old when everything changed. Our organization shattered, and it was as if the world shattered, too, and one by one the safe places were destroyed. There was a large scientific laboratory, but the volunteer who owned the place was murdered. There was an enormous cavern, but a treacherous team of realtors claimed it for themselves. And there was an immense headquarters high in the Mortmain Mountains , but-”[The Penultimate Peril, Chapter Two]

“I scarcely remember it,” Dewey said. “I was four years old when the schism began. I was scarcely tall enough to reach my favorite shelf in the family library-the books labeled 020. But one night, just as our parents were hanging balloons for our fifth birthday party, my brothers and I were taken.”[The Penultimate Peril, Chapter Eight]

Other events which have been referred to as schisms include:

The feud between Ishmael and the Baudelaire parents while they were on the Island

The mutiny started by some of the Islanders against Ishmael’s regime while the Baudelaire orphans were on the Island

Fiona’s betrayal at the end of “The Grim Grotto”

“That’s probably true,” Kit said thoughtfully. “Thursday did say that thecolony had suffered a schism, just as V.F.D. did.”“Another schism?” Violet asked.“Countless schisms have divided the world over the years,” Kit replied in the darkness. “Do you think the history of V.F.D. is the only story in the world? But let’s not talk of the past, Baudelaires. Tell me how you made your way to these shores.”[The End, Chapter Eight]

Finn had said that they needed to make a choice, but choosingbetween living alone on a coastal shelf, endangering themselves andtheir injured friend, and participating in the island’s mutinous plan, didnot feel like much of a choice at all, and they wondered how many other people had felt this way, during the countless schisms that had divided the world over the years.[The End, Chapter Eight]

Only Violet felt asif their friendship were more volatile, as if Fionafit her like the wrong glove, or as if their friendship had a tiny flaw – aflaw that might turn into a schism.[The Grim Grotto, Chapter Seven]

That being said, all the smaller schisms mentioned clearly happen AFTER the original schism. So even if some passages may be confusing as to whether the schism mentioned is the original one or one of the later ones, pretty much every character agrees that the original Schism™ is the one which happened when Kit and Dewey were four years old. It was also the most important as it split the organization into a fire-starting “villainous” side and a fire-fighting “noble” side. Interestingly it’s always the “noble” side which seemed to suffer internal schisms after that, while the “villainous” side remained united and homogenous. It’s possible that the fire-starting side was at a significant numerical disadvantage originally but grew stronger and bigger as the fire-fighting side split apart.

“It was not always this way, Baudelaires,” Dewey said. “Once there were safe places scattered across the globe, and so orphans like yourselves did not have to wander from place to place, trying to find noble people who could be of assistance. With each generation, the schism gets worse. If justice does not prevail, soon there will be no safe places left, and nobody left to remember how the world ought to be.”[The Penultimate Peril, Chapter Eight]

You're not sure. They look pretty precarious to you. But you've been assured the stairs are perfectly navigable.