Kofidis, along with a number of Christian Orthodox citizens of the Ottoman Empire, hoped that this movement would favor the various local ethnoreligious groups.

However, they soon realized that the ultimate goal of the Young Turks was the imposition of various policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide, which they launched during the following years.

He became one of the Greek representatives in the Ottoman parliament who vigorously protested and demanded strict measures to stop the ongoing genocide.

[1] The same court sentenced to death several notable figures of the local Greek community,[2] especially politicians, businessmen, and religious personalities.

[1] The execution of Kofidis angered even the Muslim population of Trebizond, who refused to hand over additional numbers of Pontic Greeks to the Turkish nationalists of Mustafa Kemal.